Rhinobatos cf. schegelii

White, William T. & Ko’Ou, Alfred, 2018, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of Papua New Guinea, Zootaxa 4411 (1), pp. 1-82 : 49

Rhinobatos cf. schegelii

Enigma Guitarfish

Local synonymy: White et al., 2018: 208, figs (PNG).

PNG voucher material: (1 spec.) NMV A 14200, female 700 mm TL, no locality data [presumably southeastern PNG], 1890.

Remarks: Only known from a single specimen labelled as collected by Andrew Goldie in 1890. Andrew Goldie collected in southeastern PNG only, from the Gulf of Papua to Milne Bay Province. Very similar to Rhinobatos schegelii from Taiwan and Japan and possibly conspecific. Some doubts exist over the locality of this specimen as PNG given that in the tropical Indo-West Pacific region, members of this genus typically occur in deeper shelf or upper slope waters, at a depth unlikely to have been fished in PNG in the 1890s. Additional specimens are required to confirm the validity of this species in PNG waters.