Chiloscyllium plagiosum (Anonymous [Bennett], 1830)

White, William T. & Ko’Ou, Alfred, 2018, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of Papua New Guinea, Zootaxa 4411 (1), pp. 1-82 : 17-18

Chiloscyllium plagiosum (Anonymous [Bennett], 1830)

Whitespotted Bamboo Shark

Scyllium plagiosum Anonymous [Bennett], 1830: 694 . Holotype probably lost. Neotype: CAS 36046; neotype designation by Dingerkus & DeFino (1983). Type locality: Java Sea, Indonesia.

Local synonymy: Chiloscyllium plaviosus — Filewood, 1973: 8 (north side of PNG). Chiloscyllium plagiosum — Kailola, 1987: 7 (eastern Papua and New Guinea coast); Fricke et al., 2014: 12 (Madang); White et al., 2018: 68, figs ( PNG).

PNG voucher material: none.

Remarks: Recorded by Filewood (1973) as Chiloscyllium plaviosus from north side of PNG and subsequently as C. plagiosum by Kailola (1987). A number of destroyed specimens identified as C. plagiosum were deposited in the KFRS collection were taken from the northern coastline (Gogol River area, Tamara Island, Ramu River area, and Darapap area). No specimens currently exist for this species in PNG but a photograph of a specimen from Filewood’s collection confirms its presence in PNG.

Listed during recent fish surveys off Madang ( Fricke et al., 2014) based on an underwater image but it only shows part of the tail of an individual and the spotting pattern matches H. strahani rather than C. plagiosum .