''Glaucostegus'', also known as giant guitarfishes, is a genus of large
Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific is a vast biogeographic region of Earth. In a narrow sense, sometimes known as the Indo-West Pacific or Indo-Pacific Asia, it comprises the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean, the western and central Pacific Ocean, and the ...
rays, with a single species, ''
Glaucostegus cemiculus'', in the East Atlantic, and
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
.
They were formerly classified in the family
Rhinobatidae but are now recognized as a distinct family, Glaucostegidae.
Their upperparts are uniform pale yellowish, brownish or greyish, and the nose is pale. Most are large, reaching in length depending on the exact species involved, except for the small ''G. obtusus'' that is less than .
[
]
Species
There are ten recognized species, all of which are classified as critically endangered
An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...
:Cuvier
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier (; ), was a French natural history, naturalist and zoology, zoologist, sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuv ...
, 1829) (Sharpnose guitarfish)
* '' Glaucostegus halavi'' ( Fabricius 1775) (Halavi guitarfish)
* '' Glaucostegus microphthalmus'' ( H.-T.Teng, 1959) (Smalleyed guitarfish)
* '' Glaucostegus obtusus'' (Müller
Müller may refer to:
Companies
* Müller (company), a German multinational dairy company
** Müller Milk & Ingredients, a UK subsidiary of the German company
* Müller (store), a German retail chain
* GMD Müller, a Swiss aerial lift manufacturi ...
& Henle, 1841) (Widenose guitarfish)
* '' Glaucostegus petiti'' ( Chabanaud, 1929) (Madagascar guitarfish)
* '' Glaucostegus spinosus'' ( Günther, 1870) (Spiny guitarfish)
* '' Glaucostegus thouin'' (Anonymous Lacépède">Bernard_Germain_de_Lacépède.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Bernard Germain de Lacépède">Lacépède/nowiki>, 1798) (Clubnose guitarfish/Thouin ray)
* ''Glaucostegus typus'' (Anonymous [Edward Turner Bennett, E. T. Bennett], 1830) (Giant guitarfish)
* ''Glaucostegus younholeei'' (Kazi Ahsan Habib, Habib & Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
, 2021) (Bangladeshi guitarfish)
References
Rhinopristiformes
Glaucostegidae
Ray genera
Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
{{batoid-stub