Urolophus Müller & Henle, 1837a

Ebert, David A., White, William T., Ho, Hsuan-Ching, Last, Peter R., Nakaya, Kazuhiro, Séret, Bernard, Straube, Nicolas, Naylor, Gavin J. P. & De Carvalho, Marcelo R., 2013, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of Taiwan, Zootaxa 3752 (1), pp. 279-386 : 358-359

Genus Urolophus Müller & Henle, 1837a

Stingarees / Ḑẽé

Urolophus Müller & Henle, 1837a: 117 . Type species: Raja cruciata Lacepède, 1804 , by original designation.

Urolophus aurantiacus Müller & Henle, 1841

Sepia Stingray / ẦḐẽ

Urolophus aurantiacus Müller & Henle, 1841: 173 , pl. 56 (right). Syntype: ZMB 7584, Gotto Island, Nagasaki, Japan. The 3 other syntypes (MNHN 0000-2602, 0000-2603, 0000-2352) are from southeastern Australia (Port Western, Victoria and Tasmania) and actually represent Urolophus cruciatus Lacepède, 1804 ; to add further confusion, one of these syntypes (MNHN 0000-2352) is also the holotype of U. cruciatus ; the type locality provided in the original description of U. aurantiacus is Gotto Island, thus ZMB 7584 should be considered the lectotype of this species.

Local synonymy: Urolophus aurantiacus: Chen & Chung, 1971: 28 ; Chen & Joung, 1993: 86, pl. 12 (fig. 8); Shao et al., 2008: 237; Shen & Wu, 2011: 100, fig. Urogymnus auranticus: Qiu, 1994: 134 .

Taiwan voucher material: (40 spec.) ASIZP 61007 (5 spec.), 23 Oct 2000 ; ASIZP 057913 , female 186 mm TL, Daxi, 17 Sep 1990 ; ASIZP 60945 (6 spec.), 250–319 mm TL, 23 Mar 2001 ; ASIZP 60465 , female 254 mm TL, 16 Nov 1996 ; ASIZP 0061200 (8 spec.), 23 Oct 2000 ; NMMB-P 6191 , Da-xi, 8 Mar 2003 ; NMMB-P 7106 , Donggang, 26 Dec 2003 ; NMMB-P 7472 , Da-xi, 16 Apr 2004 ; CAS 235427 , adult male 286 mm TL , CSIRO H 6293- 24 , female 295 mm TL , CSIRO H 6293-25 , embryo 91 mm TL, Da-xi, 22 May 2005 ; UF 159700, female 247 mm TL, Da-xi, 26 May 2005 ; NMMB-P 15469 , Da-xi, 23 Oct 2011 ; NMMB-P 15775 , 6 Sep 2010 ; CSIRO H 7395-25 , female 315 mm TL , CSIRO H 7395-26 , female 280 mm TL , CSIRO H 7395-27 , female 313 mm TL , CSIRO H 7395-28 ,female 299 mm TL , CSIRO H 7395-29 , female 329 mm TL , CSIRO H 7395-30 , female 335 mm TL, Daxi, 14 Mar 2012 ; CSIRO H 7396-06 , juvenile male 184 mm TL , CSIRO H 7396-07 , female 123 mm TL, Nan-fangao, 14 Mar 2012 ; AMNH 258305 (tissue accession GN9961 ), adult male 257 mm TL , CSIRO H 7394-21 (tissue accession GN9960 ), adult male 230 mm TL, Da-xi, 13 Mar 2012 .

Remarks: Common bycatch of trawl fisheries in Taiwanese waters. DNA barcoding has revealed differences in Taiwanese and Japanese specimens ( R. Ward, unpubl. data), but examination of specimens from both locations failed to find any major morphologically or meristic differences; Japanese specimens appear to be more reddish brown in colour than Taiwanese specimens, but this needs to be investigated further to determine if this is a consistent difference between the two populations.

Conservation status: Near Threatened.