Turkish Journal of Zoology
Author ORCID Identifier
HAKAN KABASAKAL: 0000-0001-8189-9748
UĞUR UZER: 0000-0002-7038-6469
FİRDES SAADET KARAKULAK: 0000-0002-6053-5256
DOI
10.55730/1300-0179.3215
Abstract
The current inventories of elasmobranchs in the Sea of Marmara have some taxonomic problems that need to be solved. One problematic species in the elasmobranch fauna of the region is Raja clavata Linnaeus, 1758, and atypically coloured specimens of this skate species may have been misidentified in the past as congeners or closely related species. The present results show that R. asterias may be a misidentified species of the family Rajidae due to confusion with the atypically coloured R. clavata. As taxonomy is central to the integration of data sources in the context of biodiversity research and management of any given taxa, the correct identification of species and the validation of current species inventories are crucial. Alpha taxonomy supported by species identification methods based on genomic DNA barcoding provides a more holistic approach to validating arguments such as the one put forward here. Critical analyses of the available evidence suggest that the occurrence of R. asterias in the Sea of Marmara cannot be confirmed and because of this reason its presence in the region should be considered ‘questionable.’
Keywords
Raja asterias, Raja clavata, misidentification, polymorphism, Eastern Mediterranean
First Page
92
Last Page
102
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
KABASAKAL, HAKAN; UZER, UĞUR; and KARAKULAK, FİRDES SAADET
(2025)
"Did Raja asterias ever occur in the Sea of Marmara or were previous records just cases of misidentified Raja clavata?,"
Turkish Journal of Zoology: Vol. 49:
No.
2, Article 4.
https://doi.org/10.55730/1300-0179.3215
Available at:
https://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/zoology/vol49/iss2/4
