Atelomycterus Garman

Ian P. Jacobsen & Mike B. Bennett, 2007, Description of a new species of catshark, Atelomycterus marnkalha n. sp. (Carcharhiniformes: Scyliorhinidae) from north-east Australia., Zootaxa 1520, pp. 19-36 : 19

[[ Atelomycterus Garman ]]

The genus Atelomycterus was originally proposed by Garman (1913) for the scyliorhinid species Scyllium marmoratum Bennett 1830 (Compagno & Stevens, 1993). Since its inception, three additional species; A. macleayi Whitley, 1939 , A. fasciatus Compagno & Stevens, 1993 and A. baliensis White, Last & Dharmadi, 2005 , have all been incorporated into this genus. Atelomycterus marmoratus (Bennett, 1830) has the widest recorded geographical range of the four species, and is found throughout the Indo-West Pacific region from India and Pakistan, through to Vietnam, Philippines and New Guinea (Compagno & Stevens, 1993; White et al., 2005). Closely related to A. marmoratus , A. baliensis , was described from samples obtained through market surveys of eastern Indonesia (Jimbaran Bay, Bali) (White et al., 2005). The remaining two atelomycterine catshark species, A. macleayi and A. fasciatus , are Australian endemics. Atelomycterus macleayi was first described by Whitley (1939) from Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. In comparison, A. fasciatus is a common benthic elasmobranch found on the offshore continental shelf of north-western Australia (Last & Stevens, 1994). Single A. fasciatus specimens of a different colour morph were also recorded from the Arafura Sea, the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Torres Strait (Compagno & Stevens, 1993; Last & Stevens, 1994).

A recent benthic biodiversity survey conducted in the Great Barrier Marine Park and Torres Strait region produced a number of benthic elasmobranch samples including several catshark specimens; primarily the alternate A. fasciatus colour morph. This enabled a taxonomic comparison to be conducted between A. fasciatus specimens collected from north-east Australian waters and Western Australian specimens used in the original description (Compagno & Stevens 1993). This paper provides a description of a third atelomycterine species endemic to Australian waters, and a fifth species for the genus Atelomycterus .