Narcine bancroftii (Griffith and Smith, 1834)

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 : 285

Narcine bancroftii (Griffith and Smith, 1834) —lesser electric ray, Caribbean numbfish

Synonyms:

Narcine brasiliensis corallina Garman, 1881

Narcine brasiliensis punctata Garman, 1881

Narcine umbrosa Jordan, 1884

Torpedo bancroftii Griffith and Smith, 1834

Torpedo pictus Gronow in Gray, 1854

Distribution. This species exhibits a strong habitat preference ( Carlson et al 2017), being relatively abundant in shallow coastal waters over sand bottoms throughout the northern GOM. Although this species is commonly report- ed to inhabit waters from the shoreline to approximately 20 m in depth, individuals have been documented during NMFS SEFSC trawl surveys out to approximately 65 m depth.

First Record in GOM. An individual captured off Pensacola, Florida by Silas Stearns and David Starr Jordan in 1882 appears to be the first record of this species from the northern GOM. Although Jordan and Gilbert (1882) make no mention of this species in their report of the specimens obtained during the trip, Goode and Bean (1882) include it in their list of species from the GOM, likely based upon this specimen.

Remarks. Müller and Henle (1841) considered this species as being a variety of Narcine brasiliensis (von Olfers, 1831) . Garman (1881) described two additional varieties of N. brasiliensis captured from the Florida Keys and St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean. Narcine bancroftii was resurrected by de Carvalho (1999) and the range of this species is proposed to include the waters of the western North Atlantic Ocean, including the GOM and Caribbean Sea, with N. brasiliensis limited to the coast of Brazil. This being the case, N. brasiliensis corallina and N. brasiliensis punctata should be considered as synonyms of N. bancroftii , as suggested by Carvahlo (1999), and not N. brasiliensis as currently suggested ( Fricke et al., 2019). Likewise, Narcine umbrosa and Torpedo pictus are currently considered synonyms of N. brasiliensis ( Fricke et al., 2019) , described from Key West and the Antilles, respectively. Given the localities from which these two species were described, they too should be considered synonyms of N. bancroftii instead ( de Carvalho 1999).

Conservation Status. Critically endangered, although this status has come into question and will likely change based on the information presented by Carlson et al. (2017).