Generally nocturnal, the round ribbontail ray can be solitary or gregarious, and is an active predator of small, benthic molluscs, crustaceans, and bony fishes.

It is aplacental viviparous, with the embryos sustained by yolk, and later histotroph ("uterine milk") secreted by the mother; up to seven pups are born at a time.

[1] As Taeniurops meyeni, the round ribbontail ray was described by German biologists Johannes Peter Müller and Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle in their 1841 Systematische Beschreibung der Plagiostomen, based on two syntypes collected from Mauritius.

However, this species is better known under the name Taeniura melanospilos, which was applied by Dutch ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker to a juvenile specimen from Java, in a 1953 volume of the scientific journal Natuurkundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië.

[6] The ray is named in honor of Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen (1804–1840), a physician and a botanist, who collected or supplied the type specimens.

[8] The tail is relatively short, not exceeding the width of the disc, and bears one (rarely two) long, serrated stinging spine on the upper surface.

[10] The dorsal coloration is light to dark gray, brown-gray, or purplish, becoming most intense towards the fin margins, with a highly variable pattern of irregular darker mottling and white speckles or streaks.

[3] The round ribbontail ray has a wide distribution in the Indo-Pacific region: it is found from KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa northward along the East African coast to the Red Sea, including Madagascar and the Mascarenes; from there, its range extends eastward through the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia and Micronesia, occurring as far north as Korea and southern Japan, and as far south as Australia, where it is found from at least Ningaloo Reef off Western Australia to Stradbroke Island off Queensland, including Lord Howe Island.

[11] When feeding, it adopts a characteristic posture in which it presses the margin of its disc against the bottom and takes in water through its spiracles, which it blows through its mouth to uncover prey buried in the sediment.

[11] Known parasites of this species include the monogenean Dasybatotrema spinosum,[14] Dendromonocotyle pipinna,[15] Neoentobdella garneri and N. taiwanensis,[16] and the nematode Echinocephalus overstreeti.

Like other stingrays, it is aplacental viviparous: the unborn embryos are initially sustained by yolk, which is later supplemented by histotroph ("uterine milk", containing proteins, lipids, and mucus) produced by the mother.

[3] Reproductive aggregations numbering in the hundreds have been observed at Cocos Island shortly after the onset of La Niña, which brings cooler temperatures.

One region where it is heavily pressured is in Indonesian waters, where it and other large rays are taken intentionally and otherwise by tangle netters, longliners, and trawlers operating off Java, Bali, New Guinea, and Lombok.

[1] Off South Africa, the round ribbontail ray is captured incidentally by prawn trawlers on offshore banks, but is not utilized.