Little skates are inhabitants of the sand, gravel, and mud bottoms of the shallow water in the western Atlantic from Nova Scotia to North Carolina. They are indeed little skates, reaching maximum sizes of two feet long and weighing a pound and a half. While many people who walk the beaches of the eastern seaboard have never seen a little skate, most have seen their distinctive egg pouches, which resemble little black ravioli. Little skates feed on crabs, shrimps, worms, amphipods, sea squirts, bivalve mollusks, squid, small fishes, and copepods. They are also food for larger fish. Little skates are not targeted in a commercial fishery but they are landed by sport fishermen when targeting other species.