An updated checklist of Chondrichthyes from the southeast Pacific off Peru

Abstract

The first updated and comprehensive checklist of Chondrichthyes from the southeast Pacific off Peru, based on the revision of scientific literature, is presented. The group of Chondrichthyes in the Peruvian coast is composed of 115 species that include 66 species of sharks, 43 species of batoids, and six species of chimaeras. We present nine new records and one recent discovery obtained from secondary sources. For some species, we also compiled the extensions in the geographic distributions.

The Largetooth Sawfish, Pristis pristis (Linnaeus, 1758), is not extirpated from Peru: new records from Tumbes

“…The National Action Plan for the Conservation and Management of Sharks, Rays and Related Species in Peru (PRODUCE 2014) mentions 2 species of Pristidae but without specifying them. The other publication is a revised list of Chondrichthyans in Peru (Cornejo et al 2015), which included P. pristis and P. pectinata. Given that the inclusion of this species in PRODUCE (2014) and Cornejo et al (2015) are the result of literature reviews and are not based on field surveys, the documentation here of 2 new specimens provide the first empirical records of P. pristis in Peru since 1999.…”

“…The other publication is a revised list of Chondrichthyans in Peru (Cornejo et al 2015), which included P. pristis and P. pectinata. Given that the inclusion of this species in PRODUCE (2014) and Cornejo et al (2015) are the result of literature reviews and are not based on field surveys, the documentation here of 2 new specimens provide the first empirical records of P. pristis in Peru since 1999. These records demonstrate that P. pristis is not extirpated from Peru, and they highlight the need to identify and protect critical habitats that could contribute to sawfish conservation.…”

Attitudes and misconceptions towards sharks and shark meat consumption along the Peruvian coast

“…Peru’s marine ecosystems are among the most productive in the world [ 15 ]. They harbour a high fish diversity (~1070 spp., [ 16 ]), including 66 shark species [ 17 ]. Peru is currently a major player in the international trade of shark products [ 18 ].…”

Checklist of marine elasmobranchs of Colombia

“…Comparing basins, the 90 Caribbean elasmobranch species represented 86.5 % of the species reported for the Greater Caribbean coastal zone (Robertson et al, 2015) and 42.2 % of the species reported for the North West Atlantic (Weigmann, 2016), whereas representativeness was lower for the Pacific basin, with 58.2 % of the species reported by Robertson & Allen (2015) for the Tropical Eastern Pacific and 43.8 % of the species to the North Eastern Pacific (Weigmann, 2016). Shark and batoid richness for the Colombian Caribbean was greater than that of Venezuela and Panama (Robertson et al, 2015), whereas shark and batoid richness for the Pacific was lower than that reported by Martínez-Ortiz & García-Domingo (2013) for Ecuador (61 shark species and 43 batoid species), by Cornejo et al (2015) for Peru (66 shark species and 43 batoids species) and by Espinoza et al (2018) for Costa Rica (81 elasmobranch species). However, it should be noted that Peru and Ecuador are strongly influenced by fauna from temperate waters of the southern Pacific, which increases significantly their diversity, as they provide species from different biogeographic provinces.…”