Pastinachus

Pastinachus is a genus of stingrays in the family Dasyatidae. This genus was long held to be monotypic, containing only the cowtail stingray (P. sephen). Recent studies of Indo-Pacific stingrays have revealed that there are in fact a number of different species of Pastinachus, and that some former junior synonyms may need to be resurrected.^[1]

Pastinachus
Cowtail stingray (P. sephen)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Chondrichthyes
Subclass:	Elasmobranchii
Order:	Myliobatiformes
Family:	Dasyatidae
Subfamily:	Hypolophinae
Genus:	Pastinachus Rüppell, 1829
Type species
Raja sephen Forsskål, 1775
Synonyms
Hypolophus Müller & Henle, 1837

Species

• Pastinachus ater (W. J. Macleay, 1883) (Broad cowtail stingray)
• Pastinachus gracilicaudus Last & Manjaji-Matsumoto, 2010 (Narrow cowtail stingray)
• Pastinachus sephen (Forsskål, 1775) (Cowtail stingray)
• Pastinachus solocirostris Last, Manjaji & Yearsley, 2005 (Roughnose cowtail stingray)
• Pastinachus stellurostris Last, Fahmi & Naylor, 2010 (Starrynose cowtail stingray)

Phylogeny

Combining the molecular genetic relationship analysis of the NADH2 DNA, which was used to assign Pastinachus stellurostris,^[2] and the analysis of the COI gene, which was used to evaluate P. gracilicaudus accordingly,^[3] results in approximately the following cladogram for the genus: