Aetobatus ocellatus (Kuhl, 1823)

Whitespotted Eagle Ray

Myliobatus ocellatus Kuhl, in van Hasselt, 1823: 316. No original types designated. Neotype: MZB 18225. Type locality: Muara Angke fish landing site, Jakarta, Indonesia.

Local synonymy: Aetobatis narinari: M̹ller & Henle, 1841: 179; Gilchrist & Thompson, 1911: 56; Gilchrist & Thompson, 1916: 289; von Bonde & Swart, 1923: 17; Barnard, 1925: 83, fig. 1, pl. 5; Fowler, 1925b: 194; von Bonde, 1932: 32; Fowler, 1941: 471. Stoasodon narinari: Smith, 1949a: 68, fig. 74. Aetobatus narinari: Wallace, 1967c: 15, fig. 7; Compagno, 1986: 132, fig. 26.1; Compagno et al., 1989: 114, pl.; Compagno, 1999: 117; Heemstra & Heemstra, 2004: 87; NPOA, 2013: 59; da Silva et al., 2015: 247; Ebert & van Hees, 2015: 148. Aetobatus ocellatus: White, 2014: 151 . White & Last, 2016b: 731, fig. 31.5; Weigmann, 2016: 985.

South Africa voucher material: SAIAB 12843, SAIAB 48514.

South African distribution: Knysna (WC) to KZN border with Mozambique.

Remarks: Aetobatus narinari (Euphrasen, 1790) was shown to be a species-complex based on molecular work by Richards et al. (2009); although they did not have access to samples from South Africa, or indeed from the WIO. White et al. (2010) resurrected A. ocellatus as the valid name for the Indo-Pacific, with A. narinari being restricted to the Western and Eastern Atlantic, occurring from Angola northwards (White & Last, 2016).

Conservation status: VU (2016).