Caught as bycatch and utilized for its meat, this species is threatened by heavy fishing pressure throughout its range and has been assessed as Vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

German biologists Johannes Müller and Friedrich Henle originally described the pale-edged stingray from seven syntypes, in their 1841 Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen.

[2] Several early accounts of D. zugei were confounded by specimens of D. acutirostra; in 1988 Nishida and Nakaya published a study that resolved the differences between these two species and designated a new lectotype for D.

[4] The range of the pale-edged stingray extends from the Indian subcontinent eastward to Java and Borneo, and northward to the Philippines and southern Japan.

[5] This species inhabits the inner continental shelf, favoring sandy flats in water under 100 m (330 ft) deep, and also frequently enters estuaries.

[1][5] The pale-edged stingray differs from the similar but larger D. acutirostra in having smaller eyes and an upper tail fin fold, as well as in several meristic counts such as the number of intestinal valves.

[1][6] Parasites that have been identified from this species include the tapeworms Acanthobothrium zugeinensis,[8] Balanobothrium yamagutii,[9] Pithophorus zugeii,[10] Polypocephalus ratnagiriensis and P. visakhapatnamensis,[11][12] Rhinebothrium xiamenensis,[13] Shindeiobothrium karbharae,[14] Tetragonocephalum raoi,[15] Tylocephalum singhii,[16] and Uncibilocularis indiana and U. veravalensis,[17][18] and the capsalid monogenean Trimusculotrema schwartzi.

[1] Large numbers of pale-edged stingrays are caught incidentally in bottom trawls and trammel nets, particularly in the Gulf of Thailand, the Java Sea, and off the Indian coast.