Raja africana
Raja africana, commonly known as the African skate, is a species of ray in the family Rajidae.[1] It is found at depths of 50–400 m (160–1,310 ft) in the eastern Atlantic Ocean off Mauritania and Tunisia.[1]
| Raja africana | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Chondrichthyes |
| Order: | Rajiformes |
| Family: | Rajidae |
| Genus: | Raja |
| Species: | R. africana |
| Binomial name | |
| Raja africana Capapé, 1977 | |
This species was described in 1977, but the currently used scientific name is a homonym, preoccupied by Raja africana Bloch & Schneider, 1801, which is a synonym of Urogymnus asperrimus. Consequently, a replacement scientific name is needed for the African skate.[1][2][3] Furthermore, the validity of the African skate has been questioned, with some suggesting that its type specimen may be an aberrant R. miraletus or R. straeleni.[2][3]
References
- Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2017). "Raja africana" in FishBase. July 2017 version.
- Weigman, S. (2016). "Annotated checklist of the living sharks, batoids and chimaeras (Chondrichthyes) of the world, with a focus on biogeographical diversity". Journal of Fish Biology. 88 (3): 837–1037. doi:10.1111/jfb.12874. PMID 26860638.
- Last, P.R.; Weigman, S.; and Yang, L. (2016). "Changes to the nomenclature of the skates (Chondrichthyes: Rajiformes)". In Last, P.R.; and Yearsley, G.R. (eds.). Rays of the World: Supplementary Information. CSIRO Special Publication. pp. 11–34. ISBN 9781486308019.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link) CS1 maint: uses editors parameter (link)
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