The flapper skate is found in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, although its range has contracted to a considerable extent due to overfishing, and it is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as Critically Endangered.

The flapper skate was first formally described as Raia intermedia in 1837 by the British physician and naturalist Richard Parnell with its type locality given as the Firth of Forth, Scotland, the North Sea.

[3] Parnell obtained the holotypes from a fish market in Scotland and his line drawings and descriptions match juveniles of the flapper skate.

The upper surface of the body is dark olive-green in young with small light-coloured spots, changing to greyish-brown in adults.

[8] The flapper skate is assessed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN and there are indications that has been extirpated from some parts of its range, such as the southern North Sea.

[4] It was a valuable commercial fish and its flesh was esteemed and it was vulnerable to being taken in other fisheries, not targeting this species.T=It is now prohibited from being landed in the United Kingdom and the European Union, two polities which cover most of the remaining range of this species.