Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Type: Article
Published: 2014-07-21
Page range: 401–422
Abstract views: 25
PDF downloaded: 2

First mature male record of Bathyraja schroederi Elasmobranchii, Arhynchobatidae) from the South Atlantic, with descriptions of its clasper and skeletal characters

ICHTHYS, Ichthyological Research Laboratory and Consultant, Hildesheimer Weg 13, D-22459 Hamburg, GERMANY.
Falkland Island Fisheries Department (FIFD), Stanley, Falkland Islands, UK.
South Atlantic deepwater skate clasper characters skeletal characters

Abstract

The first mature male of Bathyraja schroederi (Krefft, 1968) is reported based on a single specimen caught by longline in nearly 2000 m depth at 53°S, 57°W in the Western South Atlantic. This is only the third record after the original description of this very rare deepwater skate that is mainly found in the southwestern Atlantic and with records off southern Chile. The hitherto unknown clasper and skeletal characters of this mature male are described here and compared with the original series of seven specimens. The mature male differs in some morphometrics and meristics from the exclusively female type specimens and shows in its clasper the peculiarity of large dorsal and ventral pseudosiphons.