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The diet of the diamond stingray was quantified based on collections made from October 2013 and December 2015 on the Espiritu Santo Island in the Bay of La Paz, BCS, México. We analysed 473 stomachs, 211 (44.6%) of them contained food. The results of the prey-specific index of relative importance (%PSIRI) analysis indicated that the diet of H. dipterurus was based on infaunal and epibenthic invertebrates, especially the bivalve Solemya spp. (42.2%), and the stomatopod Nannosquilla raymanningi (7.7%). Statistical differences in diet when considering sex, age, and interactions between sex, age and season indicated older females consumed more polychaetes in the cold season, and younger females consumed more stomatopods and bivalves in the warm season. The feeding strategy of the species is specialized on three prey categories (bivalves, polychaetes, and stomatopods), with low trophic niche breadth values. The calculated trophic level indicated that the diamond stingray is a secondary consumer and mesopredator. We conclude that the diamond stingray does not maintain a redundant trophic function with sympatric elasmobranchs in the study area and therefore is likely a key prey density-regulator functioning to link energy derived from the lower to the upper trophic levels within the southern Gulf of California.

Palabras clave: batoidea; Feeding ecology; Gulf of California; mesopredators

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