Longtail stingray
Dasyatis longa
The longtail stingray (Hypanus longus, often misspelled longa), is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, found in the eastern Pacific Ocean from Baja California to Colombia. It inhabits sandy habitats down to a depth of 90 m (300 ft). Measuring up to 1.56 m (5.1 ft) across, this species has a rhomboid pectoral fin disc, a lower (but not upper) fin fold on the tail, and numerous dermal denticles along the back and behind the stinging spine. The longtail stingray feeds mainly on bottom-dwelling bony fishes and crustaceans. It is aplacental viviparous, with females giving birth to 1–5 young in late summer. It is caught for food, likely throughout its range, but specific fishery data is lacking.
Taxonomy and phylogeny
American zoologist Samuel Garman published the original description of the longtail stingray in an 1880 issue of the scientific journal Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. He gave it the name Trygon longa, in reference to the long tail, and designated a specimen from Acapulco, Mexico and another from Panama as the syntypes. Subsequent authors placed this species in the genus Dasyatis. A 2001 phylogenetic analysis by Lisa Rosenberger, based on morphological characters, found that the southern stingray (H. americanus) of the western Atlantic is the sister species of the longtail stingray.
The public source identifies “Longtail stingray” as dasyatis longa. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Longtail, stingray and Dasyatis.
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This entry incorporates text from “Longtail stingray” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.