Rostroraja eglanteria (Bosc, 1800)

Jones, Christian M., Driggers Iii, William B., Hannan, Kristin M., Hoffmayer, Eric R., Jones, Lisa M. & Raredon, Sandra J., 2020, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyan fishes inhabiting the northern Gulf of Mexico Part 1: Batoidea, Zootaxa 4803 (2), pp. 281-315 : 292-293

Rostroraja eglanteria (Bosc, 1800) —clearnose skate

Synonyms:

Raia americana DeKay, 1842

Raia desmarestia Lesueur, 1824

Raja diaphanes Mitchill, 1815

Raja eglanteria Bosc, 1800

Distribution. Distributed throughout the northern GOM but more common east of the Mississippi River than west. Commonly reported as distributed from the shore out to 120 m depth throughout their range, although NMFS SEFSC trawl surveys have reported this species from depths up to 380 m in the northern GOM.

First Record in GOM. The first published report of this species occurring in the northern GOM was by Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) based on a specimen (UMMZ 154934) collected near Pass-A-Grille Beach, Florida in Boca Ciega Bay in 1937. However, the first record of this species being collected in the waters of the northern GOM is a specimen (UF 683) collected in the vicinity of the Cedar Keys, Florida in 1930.

Remarks. The placement of this and other incertae sedis Raja of the “Amphi-American Assemblage” ( McEachran and Dunn 1998) in the previously monotypic genus Rostroraja Hulley, 1972 is provisional based on unpublished molecular data ( Last et al. 2016). Dyldin (2015) identified Raia americana as a synonym of Amblyraja radiata (Donovan, 1808) . However, details of DeKay’s (1842) description of R. americana (e.g. similarity, particularly in shape, to R. desmarestia and Dipturus batis (Linnaeus, 1758)) lead us to agree with both Garman (1913) and Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) in assigning R. americana to synonymy with R. eglanteria . Raia desmarestia is a likely synonym of R. eglanteria as well since the type locality (Florida) and description given by Lesueur (1824) match most closely with this species ( Bigelow and Schroeder 1953, Séret and McEachran 1986). Raja diaphanes has been concluded by many authors to be a synonym of Leucoraja ocellata (e.g. Scott and Scott 1988, Fricke et al. 2019). However the description provided by Mitchill (1815) matches closely with R. eglanteria not L. ocellata , particularly in the description of the elongation and acuity of the snout, not to mention the transparency of the tissue adjacent to the snout. We therefore follow Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) in considering R. diaphanes a synonym of R. eglanteria .

Conservation Status. Least Concern (as Raja eglanteria )