Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria 49(1): 101-108, doi: 10.3750/AIEP/02474
A new report confirming the presence of Bennett’s stingray, Hemitrygon bennettii (Elasmobranchii: Myliobatiformes: Dasyatidae), from the western Bay of Bengal
M. Muktha, K.V. Akhilesh, S. Sukumaran, S.J. KizhakudanCorresponding author: M. Muktha © M. Muktha, K.V. Akhilesh, S. Sukumaran, S.J. Kizhakudan. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
|  |
Abstract
The occurrence of Bennett’s stingray, Hemitrygon bennettii (Müller et Henle, 1841), is confirmed from Indian waters, based on a single male specimen (370 mm DW) collected from Visakhapatnam, western Bay of Bengal on 28 January 2017. Existing, updated reports on the distribution of the species, places it in the Indo-Pacific region with the western limit being the Strait of Malacca. With the presently confirmed occurrence from the western Bay of Bengal, the known distribution of the species extends further westwards to the Indian east coast, although it is likely to be a rare species in Indian waters.
Keywords
Dasyatidae, taxonomy, Indian Ocean, India, batoids