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Issue: Vol. 4970 No. 2: 14 May 2021
Type: Correspondence
Published: 2021-05-14
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4970.2.12
Page range: 399–400
Abstract views: 170
PDF downloaded: 14

Raja mauritaniensis: a replacement name for Raja africana Capapé, 1977 (Rajiformes: Rajidae), a junior homonym of Raja africana Bloch & Schneider, 1801 (Myliobatiformes: Dasyatidae)

CSIRO Australian National Fish Collection, National Research Collections Australia, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde in Stuttgart, Rosenstein 1, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany.
Pisces

Abstract

Raja africana Capapé, 1977 is a primary junior synonym of Raja africana Bloch & Schneider, 1801 and therefore permanently invalid (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, article 57.2) and must be replaced. Raja africana Bloch & Schneider, 1801 was first described by Bloch & Schneider (1801: 367), based on a specimen from Guinea, West Africa (eastern Atlantic Ocean). The unique holotype is extant in the Zoologisches Museum of the Humboldt University, Berlin (ZMB 7837, a partial dry skin). The species was treated as valid as Urogymnus africanus (Bloch & Schneider 1801) by Compagno & Roberts (1984: 285), but later synonymized with Urogymnus asperrimus (Bloch & Schneider 1801) in the subfamily Urogymninae of the family Dasyatidae (Myliobatiformes) by Compagno (1986: 141), Capapé & Desoutter (1990: 63) and Séret (2016: 1418). It is widespread in the eastern Atlantic, Red Sea and Indo–West Pacific.

 

References

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