unaffected by the stingray's venom. Habitat It is a shy fish, found at depths of , inhabiting areas with a sandy sea floor. These are generally around coastal reefs or reef flats, but they will sometimes venture into the brackish waters of estuaries. Population Giant guitarfishes have been exploited as incidental catch, and as a result, it has led to severe declines, reduced population size, and disappearances. Though the giant is labeled as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List, there is no specific data for the species that could be used to calculate the number of individuals in the decreasing population. Species-specific reporting and identification issues are the two major components as to why no accurate data is kept. Although there's an insufficient data record kept on the exact giant guitarfish population; the harvest rates infer that the species is substantially decreasing while the fishing rates remain stable or even increase. As the human population along the coastlines increase, fishing technology is improvised, and the expansion of the fish markets ultimately lead to an increase in fishing effort on a global scale. The highest increases in the fishing industry have occurred around the regions of Asia. Regarding the catch databases of the giant guitarfish, a research survey from the Gulf of Thailand a ninety-three percent decline in the catch rates of Rhinobathidae, which includes the numerous species of wedgefishes and guitarfishes. From this respective data, the peak catch rate occurred in 1968 to a low in 1972. Additionally, the Indonesian Aru Islands wedgefish gillnet fishery had rapidly expanded their industry from the mid 1970s to its peak in 1987, operating with more than five hundred boats. Shortly afterward, the catch rate of the fish declined significantly and only a hundred boats remained in the area by 1996. By 1992, a wedgefish fishery in the Arafura Sea had been withdrawn because the area had been significantly overfished and the Indonesian investors only obtained limited returns from their investment. Concerning the catch rates at varying levels of taxonomy, five contemporary datasets are available for accounted data ranging from Iran, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. Though it's uncertain, these datasets most likely include various species of giant guitarfishes, and each probable species is listed within the collected data. Raje and Zacharia 2009, an included dataset, doesn't include the count of giant guitarfishes but rather represents the landing data of myliobatid rays including stingrays,