Brown whipray

Lore & Background

The first known specimen of the brown whipray was a male 31 cm across, collected from the estuary of the Clarence River in New South Wales. Australian ichthyologist David George Stead received it in November 1903 and reported it as a honeycomb stingray. Gilbert Percy Whitley later recognized the specimen as a distinct species and described it in a 1939 issue of Australian Zoologist, naming it in honor of Queensland marine biologist James Tosh. Despite this, multiple subsequent publications continued to misidentify brown whiprays as juvenile honeycomb stingrays. In 2004, Mabel Manjaji grouped the brown whipray with several other species in the 'uarnak' species complex. The black-spotted whipray is a recently described, closely related species that was initially thought to be the same as M. toshi. Undescribed, related forms have also been documented from Indonesia and New Guinea.

Reader's Guide

The brown whipray is fairly common within its range and is regularly caught by intensive bottom trawl and beach seine fisheries operating in the Arafura Sea. Its skin is highly valued, while the meat and cartilage are also utilized. In 1996 and 1998, this species was one of the elasmobranchs most often caught incidentally by the Northern Prawn Fishery of northern Australia, though the survival rate of captured rays seemed relatively high. The bycatch rate is thought to have dropped substantially since the mandatory installation of Turtle Exclusion Devices and other bycatch reduction devices on Australian trawlers. As most of the brown whipray's range lies within Australian waters, where it is now minimally threatened by human activity, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed it under Least Concern. However, larger numbers are caught in the Arafura Sea and marketed for meat, skin, and cartilage.

Did You Know?

• The brown whipray was originally misidentified as a honeycomb stingray by David George Stead in 1903.
• Gilbert Percy Whitley named the species in honor of Queensland marine biologist James Tosh in 1939.
• The tail of the brown whipray measures 2.5–3 times as long as the disc is wide.
• Females produce litters of only 1–2 pups, each measuring 20–22 cm across at birth.