A ray from Cozumel

I posted the following picture on Flickr, and someone asked if the ray was healthy or not. Does anyone know what kind of ray this is, and whether the coloration is part of its natural camouflage, or whether it is a sign of some disease. The picture is of a ray in Cozumel, and the size was relatively small, maybe 30-40 cm width.

I'm pretty sure it's a yellow stingray - the sand coating was probably thin enough that the spots shone thru the sand on the flash? There's a whole lot of variation on the darker reticulation, with larger bright 'spots' overlaying the reticulation. I think the larger spots are what's showing in your image. Although it's hard to tell if there's some exposed pale relatively unmarked skin too - maybe a partial albino or something? Hopefully one of the real docs will chime in.

I've got a couple much much poorer pics of them at my Flickr page (under the Mona gallery). Won't link here to steal your thunder but you're welcome to look on your own.

Wikipedia link to it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_stingray

I tend to agree with the above, but it is hard to tell for sure without a better "ID" type photo (showing the whole animal, for rays ideally from above). It can also be a small Dasyatis as they do often get a mottled pattern, but I am more inclined to say it is a Yellow Stingray. Either way, the ray looks healthy.