First record of total albinism in southern stingray Dasyatis americana

Abstract

Abstract.-This paper describes the first record of total albinism in the southern stingray Dasyatis americana. The disc width of the albino sub adult female specimen was 640 mm and the total weight was 9,850 g. It was captured in the coast of Tabasco, southeastern Mexico.

Primer registro de albinismo en la raya redonda enana, <i>Urotrygon nana</i> (Urotrygonidae: Elasmobranchii), en el Pacífico oriental

“…A diferencia del grupo de los tiburones, se ha reportado un mayor número de rayas en estado adulto con algún grado de albinismo (Ball et al 2013;Wakida-Kusunoki, 2015), logrando alcanzar una mayor madurez al pasar desapercibidas al enterrarse en el sustrato marino en comparación con los organismos pelágicos (Ben-Souissi et al 2007;Ball et al 2013).…”

“…Estos últimos tres tipos de albinismo son también llamados leucismo (Clark, 2002). El albinismo ha sido reportado en el grupo de los condrictios, tanto en los tiburones como en las rayas y en una sola especie de quimera (Ben-Souissi et al 2007;Reum et al 2008;Bigman et al 2015), aunque es un fenómeno menos frecuente en comparación con los peces óseos (Wakida-Kusunoki, 2015). En el Pacífico oriental ha sido documentado el albinismo en diferentes especies de condrictios (Herald, 1953;Herald et al 1960;Cohen, 1973;Talent, 1973;Follett, 1976;Ebert, 1985;De Jesús-Roldan, 1990;Sandoval-Castillo et al 2006;Reum et al 2008;Bejarano-Ál-varez & Galván-Magaña, 2013;Escobar-Sánchez et al 2014;Bigman et al 2015;Sancho-Vázquez et al 2015), sin embargo, aún no se ha reportado para la familia Urotrygonidae.…”

First record of albinism in the swell shark, Cephaloscyllium ventriosum (Elasmobranchii: Carcharhiniformes: Scyliorhinidae)

“…Because its visual acuity and ability to see bioluminescence would not depend mainly on melanin (Wang et al 2007, Sparks et al 2014, Gruber et al 2016, social interactions with other swell sharks would be possible as well, as was previously suggested for albino elasmobranchs with yellow-orange eyes, caught either in interspecific aggregations (De JesusRoldan 1990) or swimming alone, but with apparently healthy status (Clark 2002, Sandoval-Castillo et al 2006, Reum et al 2008, Lipej et al 2011, Bigman et al 2015, Wakida-Kusunoki 2015. The specimen of Cephaloscyllium ventriosum presented here was considered a mature female, according to Ramírez-Amaro et al (2013).…”

First Report of Albinism in the Threatened Gillbacker Sea Catfish Sciades parkeri (Siluriformes, Ariidae)

“…Although considered rare in vertebrate groups [ 12 ], the albinism in fish is most common, as it is, in Elasmobranchii fishes such as sharks and stingrays (e.g. [ [13][14][15][16] ]) and also Catfishes, as well as representatives of the families Ariidae, Ictaluridae, Loriicaridae, Pimelodidae and Siluridae [ 8,9 ]. It is worth mentioning that it seems more common in Ariidae species that, likewise most sharks and stingrays, inhabit brackish and marine waters, whereas the other aforementioned families inhabit freshwater strictly.…”

“…Taking into account that albino specimens are more susceptible to predation than non-abnormal colored specimens [ 8 ], it is very interesting that the S. parkeri albino reported here has achieved sexual maturity, which is calculated to individuals around 50 to 70 cm SL [ 5,7 ]. In addition, it is known that albinos have pathological deficiencies, such as weak vision [ 8,16 ], for this reason it is most common in nocturnal fish (i.e.cryptobiotic) such as the Batrachoididae pacuma toadfish [ 17 ] and Anguillidae eels [ 18 ]. However, we can expect that the latter is not a major disadvantage for S. parkeri in the Amazon estuary due to the high concentration of suspended sediments thus, nearly zero visibility conditions, obligating fish and other aquatic fauna to depend on other sensory organs.…”