Touch a smooth skate and the difference is immediate. No thorns. No sandpaper. Just soft, velvety skin that feels almost like silk. The Māori name Uku applies to both skate species. But the texture could not be more different. This one is the larger of the two. It grows to over a metre wide and two metres long from nose to tail tip. It is a big, soft, silent glider of the deep. A skate that feels like silk. The smooth skate lives in deeper water than its rough cousin. It ranges from the continental shelf down to 500 metres. It prefers sandy and muddy bottoms. There it can bury itself during the day with only its eyes showing. This living camouflage hides it from predators and prey alike. At night it emerges to hunt. It uses electroreceptors to detect the faint electrical signals of buried animals. Small fish, crustaceans, squid. It crushes them with flat teeth. Like all skates, the smooth skate lays eggs. The leathery cases, known as mermaid's purses, are larger than those of the rough skate. This reflects the larger size of the adult. Each purse contains a single embryo. It develops for months before hatching as a perfect miniature skate. Slow reproduction. Long lives. That combination makes skates vulnerable to overfishing. This happens even when no one is targeting them. Populations are considered stable. But localised declines have occurred in heavily trawled areas. The smooth skate is caught as bycatch in fisheries targeting hoki, orange roughy and oreo. The deep sea is dark. The smooth skate glides, soft and silent. Its velvety skin is like silk. It buries itself in the mud. Only its eyes show. It waits. The trawl net drags. The skate is caught. It does not know it is bycatch. It does not know it is vulnerable. It just wanted to crush a clam. The smooth skate glides on, soft and silent. It lays its purses in the deep.