Rhinobatos whitei, a new shovelnose ray (Batoidea: Rhinobatidae) from the Philippine Archipelago.

A new shovelnose ray, Rhinobatos whitei sp. nov., is described from material collected at fish markets of the southern Philippines. This ray was first formally indentified as an undescribed species more than a decade ago as part of a WWF funded survey of sharks and rays of the Philippines. It was considered to be most closely related to another shovelnose ray found nearby in the western North Pacific, R. schlegelii, but differs from that species in body shape and aspects of coloration, meristics and morphometry. It differs from all other shovelnose rays of the region in its NADH2 sequence, clustering together with an Indonesian species R. jimbaranensis, and another undescribed species from Borneo.