Maculabatis gerrardi (Gray)

Fernando, Daniel, Bown, Rosalind M. K., Tanna, Akshay, Gobiraj, Ramajeyam, Ralicki, Hannah, Jockusch, Elizabeth L., Ebert, David A., Jensen, Kirsten & Caira, Janine N., 2019, New insights into the identities of the elasmobranch fauna of Sri Lanka, Zootaxa 4585 (2), pp. 201-238 : 212-213

Maculabatis gerrardi (Gray)

( Figs. 2D , 8A, B )

Four specimens morphologically consistent with Maculabatis gerrardi were examined. These came from landing sites in Pukulam (SL-9) and Puttalam (SL-15) in the North Western Province and fish markets in Munai (SL-40) and Kotaddi (SL-58) at Point Pedro in the Northern Province. Two (SL-9 and SL-58) were immatures and two (SL- 40 and SL-15) were mature. The latter mature specimen had already been processed for sale and consisted solely of the right side of the disc. Both immature specimens were morphologically consistent with the immature specimen from Malaysian Borneo used as the reference specimen for M. gerrardi (BO-163; JQ519087 ) in our analysis; both specimens possessed a few white spots on the dorsal surface of the base of the tail grading into alternating black and white bands throughout the length of the tail. Both of the mature specimens exhibited sparse, small white spots restricted to the posterior margin of the disc and pelvic fins, typical of adults of M. gerrardi . All four specimens from Sri Lanka grouped in a tight cluster with the reference specimen of M. gerrardi . They differed from one another by 0–3 bp and from the reference specimen by 5–6 bp.

This species has previously been referred to as Himantura gerrardi (Gray) (e.g., De Bruin et al. 1995; Morón et al. 1998; De Silva 2006). That name has been updated here to reflect current nomenclature ( Last et al. 2016).

Figures

FIGURE 2. Neighbor-Joining trees of p-distances based on 1,044 bp of aligned NADH2 sequence data for individual batoid genera or groups of genera. Taxon names are followed by country, host specimen number (in parentheses), and GenBank number. Outgroup taxa used in each analysis were omitted from the individual trees. Scale bar values indicate substitutions per site. Specimens deposited in the Blue Resources Trust Ichthyology Collection are indicted by stars (see text for details). A. Aetobatus (Aetobatidae). B. Brevitrygon (Dasyatidae). C. Himantura (Dasyatidae). D. Maculabatis (Dasyatidae). E. Neotrygon (Dasyatidae). F. Pastinachus (Dasyatidae). G. Pateobatis (Dasyatidae). H. Urogymnus (Dasyatidae).

FIGURE 8. Maculabatis gerrardi (A–B) and Maculabatis arabica (C–E) (Dasyatidae). A. Dorsal surface of mature female (SL-40); inset showing scapular denticles. B. Dorsal surface of immature male (SL-58); inset showing scapular denticles. C. Dorsal surface of immature female (SL-6); inset showing scapular denticles. D. Oronasal region of immature female (SL-6). E. Tail base and anterior tail region of immature female (lateral view; SL-6).