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| Neotrygon vali Borsa, 2017
DOI: 10.1101/106682
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Abstract
The blue-spotted maskray from Guadalcanal Island (Solomon archipelago) is morphologically distinct from Neotrygon kuhlii with which it was previously confused and it is genetically distinct from all other species in the genus Neotrygon. It is here described as a new species, Neotrygon vali sp. nov., on the basis of its nucleotide sequence at the cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) gene locus. It is unique in the genus Neotrygon by the possession of nucleotide T at nucleotide site 420 and G at nucleotide site 522 of the CO1 gene.
Keywords: new species, CO1 gene, molecular diagnosis, taxonomy
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| Figure 1. Guadalcanal maskray Neotrygon vali sp. nov. showing the pigmentation patterns that differentiate it from N. kuhlii from Vanikoro.
Photographed by M.A. Rosenstein near Mbike Wreck, November 2014.
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Etymology: “vali” is the word for stingray in Gela, one of the languages spoken in
Guadalcanal. Epithet vali is intended to refer to the common name of the species
among Guadalcanal fishers and it is a noun in apposition. Proposed vernacular names:
Guadalcanal maskray (English); vali Guadalcanal (Gela); pastenague masquée à points
bleus de Guadalcanal (French).
Philippe Borsa. 2017. Neotrygon vali (Myliobatoidei: Dasyatidae), A New Blue-spotted Maskray from the Solomon Archipelago Described from Its DNA Barcode. bioRxiv preprint. DOI: 10.1101/106682
