Pastinachus

Pastinachus

Cowtail stingray (P. sephen)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Chondrichthyes
Subclass:	Elasmobranchii
Order:	Myliobatiformes
Family:	Dasyatidae
Genus:	Pastinachus Rüppell, 1829
Type species
Raja sephen Forsskål, 1775
Synonyms
Hypolophus Müller and Henle, 1837

Pastinachus is a genus of stingrays in the family Dasyatidae. This genus was long held to be monotypic, containing only the cowtail stingray (P. sephen). Recent studies of Indo-Pacific stingrays have revealed that there are in fact a number of different species of Pastinachus, and that some former junior synonyms may need to be resurrected.^[1]

Species

Pastinachus atrus (Macleay, 1883)
Pastinachus gracilicaudus Last & Manjaji-Matsumoto, 2010 (Narrowtail stingray)
Pastinachus sephen (Forsskål, 1775) (Cowtail stingray)
Pastinachus solocirostris Last, Manjaji & Yearsley, 2005 (Roughnose stingray)
Pastinachus stellurostris Last, Fahmi & Naylor, 2010 (Starrynose stingray)

References

Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2011). Species of Pastinachus in FishBase. February 2011 version.

^ Last, P.R., Manjaji, B.M. and Yearsley, G.K. (2005). "Pastinachus solocirostris sp. nov., a new species of Stingray (Elasmobranchii: Myliobatiformes) from the Indo–Malay Archipelago". Zootaxa 1040: 1–16.