Checklist of marine elasmobranchs of Colombia

Abstract

A review and update to the shark and ray species recorded for the marine waters of Colombia was carried out. A total of 206 species had been recorded in the literature, of which 138 species (76 sharks and 62 rays) could be confirmed from museum records, catches, photographs, and videos. No evidence was found for 25 species, but their distribution included neighboring countries, and they were therefore classified as possible based on distribution. Thirty-six species were classified as improbable based on distribution and seven more were considered as misidentifications. The inventory of confirmed species includes 57 genera (30 shark and 27 batoid genera) and 34 families (18 shark and 16 batoid families). There was notably an addition of 26 confirmed species since 2007 as well as numerous modifications to group systematics and taxonomy, especially for batoids. The total number of confirmed elasmobranchs represented 12.1 % of species known worldwide, and could even reach 14.5 %, indicating that Colombia has one of the richest cartilaginous fish faunas in Latin America, behind Mexico and Brazil. This demonstrates that although Colombia cannot be considered an elasmobranch biodiversity hotspot or site of elasmobranch endemism globally, it does have good representativity of these species´ biodiversity at the regional level, especially regarding amphi-American species.

Almost half of the Gymnura van Hasselt, 1823 species are unknown: Phylogeographic inference as scissors for cutting the hidden Gordian knot and clarify their conservation status

“…Despite the reports of the occurrence of G. crebipunctata in the region from which the type specimen of G. afuerae was described, that is, Isla Lobos del Afuera, in northern Peru (Meek & Hildebrand, 1923), it seems likely that these individuals were misidentified, given that neither species has a caudal spine, and that they are highly similar in their dorsal and ventral coloration patterns (Smith et al, 2009). Even so, the presence of G. marmorata in waters further south than its known distribution limit, indicates that the two Gymnura species present in the region of the Gulf of California may range further south than assumed previously (Mejía‐Falla & Navia, 2019), contradicting the existing definitions of the geographic distribution of the species (Castro‐Aguirre & Espinosa‐Pére, 1996; Smith et al, 2009).…”

Squalus shiraii sp. nov. (Squaliformes, Squalidae), a new species of dogfish shark from Japan with regional nominal species revisited

“…morphological and molecular data) have supported current and constant changes in the taxonomy of S. mitsukurii as seen in Viana et al (2017b), Pfleger et al (2018), Daly-Engel et al (2018) and Dolganov (2019). Thus, reporting occurrences of this species elsewhere, including Nazca and Sala y Gomez seamounts, Chile, India, Mexico (east coast), Costa Rica, Madagascar, Colombia and Uruguay in Parin (1987), Dyer and Westneat (2010), Akhilesh et al (2014), Del Moral-Flores et al (2015, Ehemann et al (2018), Espinoza et al (2018), Fricke et al (2018), Mejía-Falla andNavia (2019) and Nión and Meneses (2016) require taxonomic clarification. It is more likely that it has been confused either with a variety of the latest Squalus species that were described or resurrected in the past 10 years or may represent undescribed species with a possible degree of regionalism/endemism.…”

First records of the blurred lantern shark Etmopterus bigelowi from the Cayman Islands, Western Atlantic

“…Deep-sea ecosystems of the subtropical and tropical Western Atlantic are believed to support at least eight species of Etmopterus (Mejıá-Falla et al, 2019). However, most biological information pertaining to these individuals is rudimentary, reflecting morphological and catch data gathered from deep-sea trawl surveys (Springer and Burgess, 1985;Paramo et al, 2012;Paramo et al, 2021).…”