FW Ray Species Found in Captivity

[Oompa Loompa]

Hi,

Looking to complie a list of freshwater rays that are found in the hands of private keepers. Even if there's only one specimen of them in private hands, I want them on the list. This is for a research database I want to create, been toying around with the idea for years and finally picking it back up.

So far the list I have is:

Himantura/Fluvitrygon kittipongi
Himantura/Fluvitrygon oxyrhynchus
Himantura/Fluvitrygon signifer
Heliotrygon gomesi
Heliotrygon rosai
Paratrygon aiereba
Plesiotrygon iwamae
Plesiotrygon nana
Potamotrygon albimaculata
Potamotrygon boesemani
Potamotrygon brachyura
Potamotrygon constellata
Potamotrygon falkneri
Potamotrygon henlei
Potamotrygon hystrix
Potamotrygon humerosa
Potamotrygon jabuti
Potamotrygon leopoldi
Potamotrygon magdalenae
Potamotrygon marinae
Potamotrygon motoro
Potamotrygon ocellata
Potamotrygon orbignyi
Potamotrygon schroederi
Potamotrygon scobina
Potamotrygon signata (???)
Potamotrygon tigrina
Potamotrygon wallacei
Potamotrygon yepezi

Only one I'm not that sold on is P. signata. There is a thread showing some rays which people were pretty divided on as far as ID went, so they could've been signata. I'm including them anyways, and will include that note with them.
These are species which I have not found evidence of private keepers owning:

Fontitrygon garouaensis
Fontitrygon ukpam
Hemitrygon laosensis
Makararaja chindwinensis
Urogymnus dalyensis
Urogymnus polylepis
Potamotrygon amandae
Potamotrygon limai
Potamotrygon pantanensis
Potamotrygon rex
Potamotrygon schuhmacheri
Potamotrygon tatianae

Within this post, these are all the taxonomically valid species of freshwater stingrays, according to Rays of the World (2016). Now, a few questions here for anyone interested in helping:

• Are there any species on the first list that shouldn't be on there?
• Are there any species on the second list that should be on the first list?
• Are there any species which are found in captivity, but don't fall into any of the species listed above thus far?

I appreciate any help that I can get with this.
Thank you
Drew

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Dieselhybrid DIDYSIS
Please feel free to tag anyone else who is very knowledgeable about rays in this thread.

Drew

 

[Bigfishnut]

One of your biggest challenges is that the Potamotrygon genus is a taxinomical nightmare. Like...which species is a xingu? Is a tiger ray a tigrina or menchacai. The list goes on. Someone can probably answer these questions for me, but there's a bunch of unanswered questions left. I hope you can make some headway with it. It would clear up a lot of confusion for me personally!

 

[Cowturtle]

I've seen the true giant asian ray (Urogymnus polylepis/Himantura chaophraya)
in videos of peoples collections over in Asia the first one to come to mind is meagletrainer I think he has at least a pair in one of his ponds.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeX40lfHv6V/?taken-by=meagletrainer

https://www.instagram.com/p/BN0ognsjxh6/?taken-by=meagletrainer

His other posts are definitely worth checking out too.
https://www.instagram.com/meagletrainer/?hl=en

 

[Cowturtle]

Also you could probably consider the Florida freshwater population of atlantic stingrays on the list.

Dasyatis sabina

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Also you could probably consider the Florida freshwater population of atlantic stingrays on the list.

Dasyatis sabina

I'm not sure I will include those, personally I feel that they should be kept in saltwater aquariu. Aside from that, I will probably eventually build up a list of freshwater rays, saltwater rays, and sharks - so a total elasmobranch database.
It would be sort of a website which would give details on all sorts of sharks and rays in captivity - where you can find them, how rare they are, how much you can expect to pay, how you should properly care for them, how you can identify them. It will just be time consuming, but hopefully someday it can be a reality.

Drew

 

[Cowturtle]

I'm not sure I will include those, personally I feel that they should be kept in saltwater aquariu. Aside from that, I will probably eventually build up a list of freshwater rays, saltwater rays, and sharks - so a total elasmobranch database.
It would be sort of a website which would give details on all sorts of sharks and rays in captivity - where you can find them, how rare they are, how much you can expect to pay, how you should properly care for them, how you can identify them. It will just be time consuming, but hopefully someday it can be a reality.

Drew

Gotcha how about freshwater sawfish they're technically a ray. Nobodies getting one for their private collection anytime soon but back in the day someone here had one and Oddball had one DOA.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/pristis-microdon-latham-or-saw-tooth-shark.756/ I remember the pics but can't seem to find them anywhere online.

Also if you haven't check out the aqualog book on rays It's pretty outdated now but has some good info on some of the other rays outside Potamotrygon more info then online for some species anyway.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

I think it will be interesting to see where the previously-described species fit in with the new list. The new list of them involves all of the Potamotrygon species listed in my original post, in both sections of it. Those are all that are in the 2016 list. Anything else either hasn't been officially described or falls in with one of the described species, which makes the Potamotrygon genus basically a large cluster-you-know-what, since there seem to be plenty of fish which don't fit into any of the groups of what's been shown so far.

Working with common names might help. Some of the more popular -

• Motoro ray (Potamotrygon motoro)
• Black diamond ray (Potamotrygon leopoldi)
• Henlei ray (Potamotrygon henlei)
• Pearl ray (Potamotrygon jabuti)
• Itaituba ray (Potamotrygon albimaculata)
• Hystrix ray (Potamotrygon hystrix)
• Raspy river ray, mosaic ray (Potamotryon scobina)
• Boesemani ray (Potamotrygon boesemani)
• Flower ray (Potamotrygon schroederi)

Aside from those, there are Snow Leopard rays, and Mantilla rays which don't appear to have scientific names as of yet. Or maybe they fit into species, I don't have the book in front of my now but I have no clue. That's a start though, hopefully we can get somewhere on it.

Drew

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Gotcha how about freshwater sawfish they're technically a ray. Nobodies getting one for their private collection anytime soon but back in the day someone here had one and Oddball had one DOA.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/pristis-microdon-latham-or-saw-tooth-shark.756/ I remember the pics but can't seem to find them anywhere online.

Also if you haven't check out the aqualog book on rays It's pretty outdated now but has some good info on some of the other rays outside Potamotrygon more info then online for some species anyway.

View attachment 1307062

Yes! I remember seeing that. We can surely include them, not that anybody will get one for many many years. Species on there was the Largetooth Sawfish, which is an Indo-Pacific species. I don't recall ever seeing anything of Oddball having one, but nothing can surprise me with what he's gotten his hands on. I don't know the species, but did see that he paid $10,000 for the fish back in the 80's - I can't even begin to imagine what the cost of one today would be if it miraculously became available. Looks like there may even be a few species that were once available in the hobby.

Drew

 

[Oompa Loompa]

As far as I know, there are otorongo, snow leopard, castexi, menchachai/tiger, and falkneri rays, all of which fall under none of the species I had listed above from the book. This gets confusing, I'll figure those out in the morning.
I'm sure there are others, too.

P-numbers go up to 62 I believe, so that might help as well. I think it's doable, but it'll take some work.