Fontitrygon margarita
| Fontitrygon margarita | ||||||||||||
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Fontitrygon margarita |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Fontitrygon margarita | ||||||||||||
| ( Günther , 1870) |
Fontitrygon margarita is a species of stingray and lives off the coasts of West Africa .
features
Fontitrygon margarita has a round and comparatively thin pectoral fin disc that is about as wide as it is long and can reach widths of up to one meter, but usually does not exceed 60 cm, with females usually becoming significantly larger than males. The tip of the snout protrudes only slightly beyond the round disc. The eyes are medium-sized and are followed by slightly larger injection holes. The tail is longer than the disc and usually has a single venomous sting on top. At its base the tail is broad and flat, behind the sting it becomes thin and whip-like. The color of the upper side of the disc is gray-brown, that of the underside is whitish. It can weigh up to 17 kg.
Way of life
The ray lives in the eastern Atlantic between Senegal and the Republic of the Congo over preferably sandy soil in shallow water near the coast, rarely at depths of up to 60 m. Sometimes it is also found in lagoons and estuaries. Its preferred prey are prawns , crabs , clams and annelids . It is ovoviviparous with litters of one to four young, which are preferably born in sheltered shallow water.
It is brought in by traditional and, in small quantities, also commercial fishermen with longlines , beam trawls , set nets , fish traps , purse seine and simple fishing line and used fresh, smoked, dried or salted for human consumption. Because of the continuous fishing and partly also human influences on its habitat, the stocks have declined and it is classified by the IUCN with EN (highly endangered).
Systematics
The ray species was described in 1870 by the German zoologist Albert Günther under the scientific name Trygon margarita , later assigned to the genus Dasyatis . When the Dasyatidae was revised in mid-2016 , the species was placed in the newly introduced genus Fontitrygon .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Last, PR, Naylor, GJP & Manjaji-Matsumoto, BM (2016): A revised classification of the family Dasyatidae (Chondrichthyes: Myliobatiformes) based on new morphological and molecular insights. Zootaxa , 4139 (3): 345-368. doi: 10.11646 / zootaxa.4139.3.2
Web links
- Fontitrygon margarita on Fishbase.org (English)
- Dasyatis margarita on the IUCN Red List