Fontitrygon margaritella
| Fontitrygon margaritella | ||||||||||||
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Fontitrygon margaritella |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Fontitrygon margaritella | ||||||||||||
| ( Compagno & Roberts , 1984) |
Fontitrygon margaritella is a species of stingray and lives off the coasts of West Africa .
features
Fontitrygon margaritella has a round and comparatively thin pectoral fin disc that is about as wide as it is long and reaches widths of up to 30 cm with a total weight of up to one kilo. The tip of the narrow snout protrudes clearly beyond the round disc. The eyes are followed by injection holes of roughly the same size. In the middle of the back there is a thorn, the tip of which ends with an oval pearl, from which the name of the species is derived ( Latin margaritella = small pearl). The tail usually has a single, but sometimes multiple venomous sting at the top. At its base the tail is broad and flat, behind the sting it becomes thin and whip-like. The upper side of the disc is gray-brown in color, while the underside is completely white.
Way of life
The ray lives in the eastern Atlantic between Ras Nouadhibou and Angola over preferably sandy soil in shallow water near the coast. Sometimes it is also found in lagoons and estuaries and occasionally penetrates into the lower reaches of the Congo . Practically nothing is known about his diet. It is ovoviviparous with litters of one to three young animals.
It is fished by inshore fishermen with longlines , beam trawls and triple-wall nets and sold fresh, smoked, dried or salted for human consumption. Like Fontitrygon margarita, it would probably be considered endangered even though it is less targeted for fish because of its smaller size. Due to the frequent confusion with this, there are no reliable catch and stock figures available and it is classified by the IUCN with DD (data deficit).
Systematics
The ray species was described in 1984 under the scientific name Dasyatis margaritella . 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 margaritella on Fishbase.org (English)
- Fontitrygon margaritella on the IUCN Red List