Rajidae

Biscoito, Manuel, Ribeiro, Cláudia & Freitas, Mafalda, 2018, Annotated checklist of the fishes of the archipelago of Madeira (NE Atlantic): I-Chondrichthyes, Zootaxa 4429 (3), pp. 459-494 : 488

Family Rajidae

Raja macrorynchus Rafinesque, 1810 — No common name

Günther 1870: 468 (as Raja macrorhynchus sic) (misidentification)

Fowler 1936: 111 | Noronha & Sarmento 1948: 121 | Maul 1948: 140 | Nunes 1953: 198.

Distribution in Macaronesia. recorded only from Madeira.

Remarks. the specimen sent from Madeira by R. T. Lowe, to the Natural History Museum (BMNH 1860.8.30.7), on which Günther (1870) and subsequent authors based the occurrence of this species in Madeira (labeled as Raja macrorhynchus (sic )), was observed by the authors (MB) and identified as Dipturus intermedius . R. macrorynchus is considered a valid species by Eschmeyer et al. (2017), but other authors consider it as synonym of D. batis (e.g. Ebert & Stehmann 2013). In all, since records in the literature are all based on Lowe’s specimen in BMNH, we opted to withdraw this species from the list of Chondrichtyans of Madeira, no matter it is a valid species or a junior synonym.