Maculabatis astra (Last, Manjaji-Matsumoto & Pogonoski, 2008)

Open encyclopedia reference

The black-spotted whipray (Maculabatis astra) is a species of stingray in the family Dasyatidae, found in the coastal waters off southern New Guinea and northern Australia. Long thought to be a variant of the related brown whipray (M. toshi), this species has an angular, diamond-shaped pectoral fin disc and a whip-like tail without fin folds. It is characterized by its dorsal color pattern, which consists of a variably extensive covering of small, close-set dark, and sometimes also white spots, on a grayish-brown background. In addition, the tail has alternating light and dark saddles past the stinging spine. This species reaches a maximum recorded width of 80 cm (31 in). Crustaceans are the main type of food consumed by the black-spotted whipray. It is aplacental viviparous, with females gestating 1–3 young at a time, supplying them with histotroph ("uterine milk"). Most of the black-spotted whipray's range lies within Australian waters, where it faces minimal conservation threats since the widespread deployment of bycatch-reducing measures on commercial trawlers.

Wikipedia contributors, Black-spotted whipray; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T23:07:02.461272+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name

Maculabatis astra (Last, Manjaji-Matsumoto & Pogonoski, 2008)

Name authority

(Last, Manjaji-Matsumoto & Pogonoski, 2008)

Rank

species

Accepted status

accepted

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Elasmobranchii

Order

Myliobatiformes

Family

Dasyatidae

Genus

Maculabatis

Extinction status

Not supplied by this source

Source habitat flags: Marine: yes · Freshwater: no · Terrestrial: no. These do not form a complete habitat description.

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
2. kingdomAnimalia
3. phylumChordata
4. subphylumVertebrata
5. infraphylumGnathostomata
6. parvphylumChondrichthyes
7. classElasmobranchii
8. subclassNeoselachii
9. infraclassBatoidea
10. orderMyliobatiformes
11. familyDasyatidae Jordan & Gilbert, 1879
12. genusMaculabatis Last, Naylor & Manjaji-Matsumoto, 2016
13. speciesMaculabatis astra (Last, Manjaji-Matsumoto & Pogonoski, 2008)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Maculabatis. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

Browse 85 records assigned to Dasyatidae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

1. https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1042866 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3XDNJ. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.