Tarsistes philippii is a taxonomically dubious species of guitarfish, family Rhinobatidae.[1] It is known only from a dried head from the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile. The head had a long, thin, flat snout, rounded at the tip like that of the goblin shark, and the underside covered with small stellate prickles except for the base. The head was covered with larger spinules, with six still larger ones forming a curve around the eye.[2]
| Tarsistes | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Chondrichthyes |
| Subclass: | Elasmobranchii |
| Order: | Rhinopristiformes |
| Family: | Rhinobatidae |
| Genus: | Tarsistes D. S. Jordan, 1919 |
| Species: | T. philippii
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| Binomial name | |
| Tarsistes philippii D. S. Jordan, 1919
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The original specimen was assigned to the genus Rhynchobatis without a species name by Philippi in 1858; David Starr Jordan considered that genus name preoccupied (by Rhynchobatus) and coined the new scientific name Tarsistes philippii for it in 1919.[2] However, the holotype has never been studied or described since, so the status of this species is uncertain.[3] In their revision of the generic alpha-taxonomy of Rhinobatidae, Last et al. (2016) considered Tarsistes a possible synonym of Pseudobatos.[4]
References
edit- ^ Froese, Rainer; Pauly, Daniel (eds.). "Tarsistes philippii". FishBase. November 2008 version.
- ^ a b Jordan, D.S. (1963). The Genera of Fishes and a Classification of Fishes. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0201-2.
- ^ Lamilla, J. (2003). "Taxonomic key for the identification of Chilean rays and skates species (Chondrichthyes, Batoidei)". Investigaciones marinas. 31 (2): 3–16.
- ^ Last, P. R., Séret, B. & Naylor, G. J. P. (2016). A new species of guitarfish, Rhinobatos borneensis sp. nov. with a redefinition of the family-level classification in the order Rhinopristiformes (Chondrichthyes: Batoidea). Zootaxa 4117, 451–475. 10.11646/zootaxa.4117.4.1