Himantura tutul

description

(Figs. 2 C, 7 A – C) Eight specimens consistent in coloration with the Himantura uarnak (Gmelin) species complex were examined. These came from Palkanththura (SL- 1), Pukulam (SL- 8, SL- 10), Baththalangunduwa Island (SL- 12), and Puttalam (SL- 14) landing sites in the North Western Province, and the Munai (SL- 34, SL- 42) and Kottadi (SL- 61) markets in Point Pedro in the Northern Province. The dorsal surface of the disc of all four immature specimens (SL- 1, SL- 12, SL- 34, and SL- 61) had regular brown spots on a yellow or pale brown background. However, somewhat marked color pattern differences were seen among the four adult specimens. In two cases (SL- 8 and SL- 10), the dorsal surface of the disc is yellow to gray and bears numerous small spots that are essentially ocelli. In two other cases (SL- 14 and SL- 42), the dorsal surface of the disc is yellow and bears numerous, small, brown, irregular, elongate spots. However, the eight specimens differed from one another by only 0 – 4 bp and are thus likely conspecific. In terms of the identity of the Sri Lankan material, in the tree resulting from the Neighbor-Joining analysis, which included reference sequences of all five descr

New insights into the identities of the elasmobranch fauna of Sri Lanka