Aetobatus narinari was described from the Atlantic in the eighteenth century and later applied to spotted eagle rays worldwide, on the reasonable-looking grounds that they appeared identical. Genetic and morphological comparisons in the 2000s and 2010s found consistent divergence between ocean basins, and the group was divided: A. narinari in the Atlantic, A. ocellatus in the Indo-West Pacific, and A. laticeps in the eastern Pacific.
Much of the popular natural history of the spotted eagle ray, including well-known accounts of leaping clear of the water and of aggregations in the Indian Ocean, comes from populations that are now assigned to A. ocellatus.
The biology the species share is real enough. The projecting snout is used to excavate buried bivalves, and the jaws hold flattened plates that grind shell into fragments, which are separated from the flesh before the fragments are expelled.