Abstract
The blue-spotted maskray from Guadalcanal Island (Solomon archipelago) is morphologically distinct from Neotrygon kuhlii with which it was previously confused and it is genetically distinct from all other species in the genus Neotrygon. It is here described as a new species, Neotrygon vali sp. nov., on the basis of its nucleotide sequence at the cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1) gene locus. It is unique in the genus Neotrygon by the possession of nucleotide T at nucleotide site 420 and G at nucleotide site 522 of the CO1 gene.
Copyright
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.