Mobula melanyae

Adnet, Sylvain, Cappetta, Henri, Guinot, Guillaume & Sciara, Giuseppe Notarbartolo Di, 2012, Evolutionary history of the devilrays (Chondrichthyes: Myliobatiformes) from fossil and morphological inference, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166 (1), pp. 132-159 : 139

† MOBULA MELANYAE ( CASE, 1980)

Synonymy: Manta melanyae Case, 1980

Occurrences: Only known from the River Bend Formation in North Carolina ( USA) possibly dated as Middle–Late Oligocene ( Ward, 1985 in Müller, 1999). Remarks: Teeth are broken (no root thoroughly preserved) but their morphologies are unusual, having a labiolingually compressed root, a high crown with an inclined upper labial face that displays a strongly ornamented enamel (except in its apical part) with numerous grooves, at least in adult specimens ( Case, 1980: pl. 10, fig. 1), and an irregular transversal crest. Cicimurri & Knight (2009) considered that only the holotype (large specimen) is referable to Mobula whereas the paratype, nearly two times smaller, belongs to the dubious genus † Paramobula . Without additional evidence beyond size, we disagree with such splitting and consider that both the holotype and paratype belong to the same species (adult and juvenile, respectively).