Neotrygon, Castelnau, 1873

Haque, Alifa Bintha, White, William T., Cavanagh, Rachel D., Biswas, Aparna Riti & Hossain, Nazia, 2021, New records of elasmobranchs in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh: further taxonomic research is essential, Zootaxa 5027 (2), pp. 211-230 : 218

Genus Neotrygon

The Neotrygon kuhlii species complex has recently been expanded (Last et al. 2016). These taxonomic revisions, however, did not consider Bay of Bengal specimens in detail. To date, two species have been recorded from Bangladesh; N. indica and N. kuhlii ( Haque et al. 2019a; Hoq et al. 2011). In this present study, a total of 649 specimens were examined, and five sampled for genetic analysis. Morphological differences were observed, including the dorsal coloration and tail banding. Several specimens were most consistent with N. caeruleopunctata , but have been preliminarily identified as N. cf. caeruleopunctata ( Figure 5 ) due to possible genetic differences in the Bay of Bengal specimens. It is likely that previous records of N. kuhlii represent this species, with N. kuhlii now considered to occur only from the Solomon Islands, and adjacent island groups ( Last et al. 2016a). All genetically sampled specimens were labelled as Neotrygon Bay of Bengal variants.

Figures

FIGURE 5. Dorsal and ventral image of Neotrygon cf. caeruleopunctata from Cox’s Bazar (Female, DW= 30.48 cm).