Pastinachus solocirostris sp. nov., a new species of Stingray (Elasmobranchii: Myliobatiformes) from the Indo-Malay Archipelago.
Author
Peter R. Last
Author
B. Mabel Manjaji
Author
Gordon K. Yearsley
text
Zootaxa
2005
1040
1
16
http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:756A36A1-95BC-4FD9-A58A-1DA0EAB3A830
journal article
z01040p001
756A36A1-95BC-4FD9-A58A-1DA0EAB3A830
[[
Pastinachus
Rueppell
]]
Pastinachus
is generally considered to be a monotypic genus with a widespread species,
P. sephen (
Forsskal
, 1775)
, occurring across the Indo-Pacific from the Red Sea to Australia, including Melanesia, Micronesia, and the China Seas (Last & Compagno, 1999). Five nominal species are presumed to be junior synonyms:
Taeniura atra Macleay, 1883
(Last and Stevens, 1994),
Raia fluviatilis Hamilton, 1822
(Roberts, 1998),
Trigon forskalii
Rueppell
, 1829
(Nishida and Nakaya, 1990),
Dasybatus gruveli Chabanaud, 1923
(Last and Compagno, 1999), and
Raia sancur Hamilton, 1822
(Talwar and Jhingran, 1991). Recent research on Indo-West Pacific dasyatids has shown that more than one species of
Pastinachus
exists in the region and some of these names may need to be resurrected. Most of these unidentified taxa are very similar morphologically to
P. sephen
. In this manuscript, a new species with an unusual, distinctive angular snout covered in rough denticles is described based on material collected from Malaysian Borneo and Indonesia.