Bathytoshia lata (Garman, 1880)

Brown Stingray

Trygon lata Garman, 1880: 170 . Holotype (unique): MCZ 129 -S. Type locality: Hawaiian Islands .

Local synonymy: Dasyabatis agulhensis: Barnard, 1925: 78 (original description, holotype apparently lost, caught on the Agulhas Bank, South Africa); Fowler, 1941: 418; Smith, 1949a: 70. Dasyatis lubricus: Smith, 1957e: 429, pl. 15 (original description, Algoa Bay, holotype SAIAB [former RUSI] 431); Smith, 1961a: 565, fig. 79a, pl. 108. Dasyatis thetidis: Wallace, 1967c: 40, fig. 20; Compagno & Heemstra, 1984: 3; Compagno, 1986: 137, fig. 30.4; Compagno et al., 1989: 102, pl.; Compagno, 1999: 117; Ebert & van Hees, 2015: 147; Weigmann, 2016: 969. Bathytoshia lata: Last et al. 2016h: 354; Last et al. 2016i: 532, fig. 25.3.

South Africa voucher material: SAIAB 431 (Holotype of D. lubricus) . SAIAB 7868 [former ORI B842], SAIAB 7878 [former ORI B806], SAIAB 7890 [former ORI B843], SAIAB 26642, SAIAB 26969, SAIAB 27443, SAIAB 27575, SAIAB 40960, SAIAB 79496 .

South African distribution: Cape Agulhas (WC) to Kosi Bay (KZN).

Remarks: Barnard (1925) first reported this species in South African waters by describing Dasyatis agulhensis as a new species. Smith (1957e) also described it as a new species, D. lubricus, from off Algoa Bay, but both these species were synonymized by Wallace (1967c) as D. thetidis, which was long considered valid until Last et al. (2016h) revised the family and concluded that it is Bathytoshia lata, a wide-ranging species of large stingray found in the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Atlantic, including the Mediterranean Sea.

Conservation status: NE.