306 Papers from the Marine Biological Laboratory at Tortugas. 



GENERA AND SPECIES OF ANGLE-TOOTHED RAYS. 



The observations of the present writer having been restricted to one 

 form, A'etohatus narinari, and that in but two locaHties, he hesitates to go 

 into this subject further than to collect here the data brought together in 

 the historical part of this research. It is certain that the fish is subject 

 to great variation, and it is possible that the great differences, especially 

 in color and in the presence or absence of spots on various parts of the body, 

 are, as Gunther (1870) found for the teeth, varietal and not specific. If 

 many specimens from the various tropical waters could be collected and 

 compared by such taxonomists as Gill, Jordan, Evermann, Boulenger, 

 Smith, or Regan, it might be possible to reconcile the many discrepancies 

 revealed in the various descriptions quoted in this paper. Descriptions 

 are at best very unsatisfactory, while figures, being for the most part 

 made from (more or less badly) preserved specimens, are but little less so. 

 What is needed is to have these various rays side by side that critical ex- 

 amination and careful measurements of minute details of structure might 

 be made. But these fishes are so large and unwieldy, and their preservation 

 for these reasons so difficult, that such an examination, however much to be 

 wished for, is of the very distant future. 



There are, however, at least two and possibly three or four well-marked 

 species which seem to have gained places for themselves in ichthyological 

 literature. But at least one generic and several specific names have been 

 given which do not seem to have had permanence. One species has been 

 pretty firmly established, but is attributed to an author who merely copied 

 from another copier. Other Myliobatids have by some been made syn- 

 onymous with A. narinari, when they belong to entirely different genera. 

 The facts will be herein presented and the reader may form his own con- 

 clusions independently of these expressed by the present writer. 



Aetobatus narinari. 

 genuine synonyms. 



The species known longest and best is Aetobatus narinari, the history 

 of whose nomenclature will now be briefly sketched. The name narinari 

 (in its various spellings) appears to have been a Brazilian or Indian word 

 meaning sting ray. It seems to have been first applied to the ray bearing 

 that name by Abbeville in 1614, but the name and the ray were together 

 first given a place in scientific literature by Marcgrave in 1648. Euphrasen 

 (1790) first designated it binomially as Raja narinari, wisely retaining the 

 native name, and to him is due the credit for having assigned the specific 

 designation. For the specific characters see descriptions by Marcgrave and 

 Euphrasen, pages 246 and 249. 



However proper the specific term, Euphrasen's generic name was entirely 

 too indefinite, so Blainville in 1816 established the genus Aetobatus, with the 

 following characters: 



