FISHES OF HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 
47 
50. Found in most warm seas, some of them in the fresh waters of the northern parts of South 
America. The large, jagged spine on the muscular tail is capable of inflicting a severe and even 
dangerous wound. 
Only the genus Dasyatis is thus far known to be represented in Hawaiian waters. 
Genus 14. DASYATIS Rafinesque. 
Disk oval, flat, with rounded angles; tail very long and slender, whip-like without fin, but often 
with one or 2 vertical membranous folds; a strong serrated spine toward the base of the tail; skin 
more or less spinous or jrrickly, rarely smooth; teeth small, paved; a few papillae usually present in 
the mouth behind the lower jaw. Species about 30. Sting rays of large size, abundant in warm seas. 
Many of the spinous species are nearly or quite smooth when young, becoming rough with age. 
Dasyatis Rafinesque, Caratteri di AlcuniNuoviGen., 16, 1810 ( ujo—padinaca ; Dasybaius Klein, 1742); Jordan & Evermann, 
Fishes North and Mid. Amer., I, 82, 1896 (p aslinaca). 
Uroxis Rafinesque, Indice d’Ittiol. Sicil. , 61, 1810 ( ujus ). 
Trigonobalus Blainville, Journ. Phys. 1816, 261 (vulgaris). 
Trygon Adamson in Cuvier, Regne Animal, Ed. I, 136, 1817 ( pastinaca ). 
lJimantura Muller & Henle, Wiegmann’s Archiv 1837, 400 (uarnals). 
Hemitrygon Muller & Henle, Mag. Nat. Hist., II, 1838, 90 ( bennetti ). 
Pastinaca Swainson, Class. Anim., Vol. II, 319, 1839 ( olivacea ). 
Anacanlhus Ehrenberg in Swainson, 1. c., 320 (orbicularis) . 
Pastinaca Cuvier in De Kay, New York Fauna, Fish., 373, 1842 (hastata). 
Dasibatis Garman in Jordan & Gilbert, Synopsis, 65, 1883 (pastinaca); corrected orthography. 
a. Tail with a keel or wing-like expansion below only; adult with stout bucklers on back and tail; tail rough. 
b. Tail not more than twice length of disk; body and tail without large tubercles sciera, p. 47 
bb. Tail more than twice length of body; body and tail with some large tubercles lata, p. 47 
aa. Tail with a narrow keel or wing-like expansion above, and a wider one below hawaiiensis, p. 48 
14. Dasyatis sciera Jenkins. Plate 4, fig. 2. 
Snout about 4 in length to base of tail; eye a little over 3 in interorbital width, which is 1.3 in 
snout or twice width of mouth; internasal width 1.4 in snout. 
Body very rhomboid, the width of the disk being much greater than its length, greatest width 
somewhat in front of center of length ; head very broad, the anterior margins of the disk nearly straight, 
very slightly undulated; snout broad and obtuse; eye small; mouth small, only slightly undulated; 
posterior margins of disk very slightly rounded; teeth small, in about 26 very oblique series in the 
upper jaw; upper buccal flap with a broad fringe; floor of mouth with 4 median short tentacles and 
each side with 2 smaller ones; nostrils large, the border of the broad nasal flap with a fine fringe; 
interorbital space more or less flattened and concave in the middle; gill-openings of about equal length, 
the fourth level with the greatest width of the fish; body more or less smooth, except the upper surface 
of the tail, which is covered with many asperities; many pores below; tail a little less than twice 
length of disk and with a narrow cutaneous fold beneath, beginning under insertion of dorsal. 
The above description is from the type, a specimen about 41 inches in total length (to base of 
tail 12.63 inches, length of tail 28 inches), collected at Honolulu by Dr. O. P. Jenkins in 1889. 
Of this species we know but few examples. One is described above, and another was also taken 
at Honolulu by Dr. Jenkins. In the latter the tail has been severed from the body. In all essential 
characters it agrees with the type. This species was also recorded by Snyder. 
Dasyatis sciera Jenkins, Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., XXII, 1902 (Sept. 23, 1903), 421, pi. I, Honolulu; Snyder, 1. e. (Jan. 19, 1904) , 
515 (Honolulu). 
15. Dasyatis lata (Garman). 
Disk quadrangular, one-fourth wider than long; anterior margins nearly straight, forming a verv 
blunt angle at the snout, rounded near the outer extremities, convex posteriorly; inner margins 
straight a portion of their length; ventrals truncate, rounded; snout produced, forming a rounded 
prominence in front of the margins of the disk; length from forehead less than width of head; a line 
joining the wider portions of disk passes nearer to the head than to the shoulders; tail more than 
