Northern range extension of the round stingray Taeniurops grabatus (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817) (Myliobatiformes: Dasyatidae)

The genus Taeniurops comprises two valid species within the family Dasyatidae: Taeniurops grabatus (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1817) and Taeniurops meyeni (Müller & Henle, 1841). This paper reports the first record of a specimen of Taeniurops grabatus caught in trammel nets at a depth of 3 m in Galician waters (north-west Spain). We provide a comprehensive morphological description and illustrations of the specimen, a female with a total length of 1740 mm and a weight of 62.5 kg. In addition, molecular analysis has provided a new COI DNA barcode sequence, which has now been added to the molecular repositories. This specimen represents the northernmost documented occurrence of the species in the Atlantic Ocean. We discuss the range of the species based on the existing literature, noting that Taeniurops grabatus is a thermophilic or tropical affinity species. Its presence in the northern Iberian Peninsula is likely a consequence of range shifts of fish species due to climate change or transgression of subtropical waters.