Peter R Last

Peter R Last
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation | CSIRO · Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research

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278
Publications
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Publications

Publications (278)
Article
Full-text available
Members of the genus Brevitrygon are small, locally abundant tropical stingrays (family Dasyatidae) occurring in soft sedimentary habitats of inner continental shelves of the Indo-West Pacific from the Red Sea to Indonesia. Formerly members of the genus Himantura, whose members lack dorsal and ventral skin folds on the tail (typical of most dasyati...
Article
Full-text available
Longnose skates have great economic importance in South American fisheries, and in order to preserve them it is important to have a well-defined taxonomic status of their species. Dipturus lamillai was recently described for Malvinas Islands waters based on morphological and molecular comparisons with Zearaja chilensis. Although D. lamillai has bee...
Article
A new stingray, Hemitrygon yemenensis sp. nov., is described from old preserved material collected on the Arabian Sea coast of eastern Yemen. Consistent with other members of the genus, H. yemenensis sp. nov. is a small dasyatid (males mature at ~22 cm disc width), but it is the only Hemitrygon known to occur outside the western Pacific and eastern...
Article
Aim To develop a comparative phylogeographic framework to understand the origins, evolution, taxonomic richness, and distribution of Australian demersal fish endemics in the context of the Indo‐West Pacific (IWP). Location Southern Australia and the IWP. Taxon Platycephalidae (flathead fishes). Methods Nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies of fl...
Article
A new species of guitarfish, Rhinobatos ranongensis sp. nov., is described from 5 preserved specimens, and images and tissue samples of additional material, collected from the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal. This species co-occurs in the eastern sector of the northern Indian Ocean with two poorly defined congeners, R. annandalei Norman and R. lionot...
Article
A new arhynchobatin skate, Notoraja sereti n. sp., is described based on three specimens collected from off Madang (Papua New Guinea) at depths of 800–980 m. This medium-size Notoraja skate shares with other velcro skates from the Western Pacific, N. alisae, N. fijiensis, N. inusitata and N. longiventralis, a ventral surface covering of fine dentic...
Book
Full-text available
The first illustrated guide to the over 630 known species of rays found on the planet. Rays are among the largest fishes and evolved from shark-like ancestors nearly 200 million years ago. Rays of the World is the first complete pictorial atlas of the world's ray fauna and includes information on many species only recently discovered by scientists...
Chapter
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Rays of the World (in press), the first fully illustrated treatment of the world’s ray fauna, will summarise information on this surprisingly poorly known group of chondrichthyan fishes. Specialist long-term information and new data acquired as part of a multinational research initiative (Chondrichthyan Tree of Life Project) have provided a better...
Article
Full-text available
In the course of the NSF-funded project “Jaws and Backbone: Chondrichthyan Phylogeny and a Spine for the Vertebrate Tree of Life”, morphological and molecular data were collected for a huge number of species (including type specimens). Molecular studies using mitochondrial and nuclear markers with dense taxon sampling corroborate that the skates co...
Article
Molecular analyses and information gleaned from an examination of the newly available adult male of the North-West Pacific skate, Okamejei jensenae Last & Lim, supported earlier concerns that the species might be mis-assigned. Morphological data based on this specimen supported its placement in a new genus Orbiraja that is assigned to the recently...
Article
A new species of guitarfish (Rhinobatos) is described based on a single specimen collected in 2014 from off New Ireland in Papua New Guinea. This specimen represents the first record of the family Rhinobatidae in Papua New Guinean waters. Based on molecular data, the new species appears to be most similar to Rhinobatos whitei (Philippines) and Rhin...
Article
A new legskate, Sinobatis andamanensis sp. nov. is described from a small collection of specimens taken off Phuket (Thailand) during an exploratory survey of the Andaman Sea. It is the first species of Sinobatis and the only legskate known from the northern Indian Ocean. Sinobatis andamanensis sp. nov. has an especially long and narrowly pointed sn...
Article
Full-text available
A new whipray, Maculabatis ambigua sp. nov., described from material collected from the Red Sea and off Zanzibar (Tanzania), is probably more widespread in the northwestern Indian Ocean. It has been confused with other Indian Ocean whiprays of the genus Maculabatis (formerly Himantura in part) i.e. M. gerrardi and M. randalli . Maculabatis ambigua...
Article
Three undescribed stingrays were discovered as part of a broader revision of the family Dasyatidae that formed part of the Chondrichthyan Tree of Life project. This research forms part of a sequence of papers on rays aimed at describing unnamed species for inclusion in a multi-authored guide to rays of the world. The first part of this series focus...
Article
An investigation of combined CO1 and NADH2 data for rajid skates referable to Raja miraletus provided evidence that populations ranging from southern Africa to the North-East Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea, once considered to represent a cline, belong to a species complex consisting of at least four valid species. Raja miraletus appears to be confi...
Article
The Mumburarr Whipray, Urogymnus acanthobothrium sp. Nov. is described from a single specimen taken from the Cambridge Gulf, Western Australia, and from images of 10 other specimens from northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (all observed but not collected). It is a very large ray that attains at least 161 cm disc width, making it amongst the lar...
Article
Two new medium-sized whiprays, Maculabatis arabica sp. Nov. and M. bineeshi sp. Nov., are described from specimens collected in coastal habitats of the northern Indian Ocean, off India and Pakistan. Both species superficially resemble M. randalli (Last, Manjaji-Matsumoto & Moore), and appear to have been confused with a more widely distributed whip...
Article
Full-text available
The recently resurrected genus Acroteriobatus is represented in the western Indian Ocean by eight species, including a new guitarfish Acroteriobatus omanensis sp. nov. This small species (reaching ~60 cm TL) was discovered off Oman in an investigation of the chondrichthyan fauna of the Arabian in 2002 and 2003. Its distinctiveness from other member...
Article
Full-text available
The higher-level taxonomy of the stingrays (Dasyatidae) has never been comprehensively reviewed. Recent phylogenetic studies, supported by morphological data, have provided evidence that the group is monophyletic and consists of four ma-jor subgroups, the subfamilies Dasyatinae, Neotrygoninae, Urogymninae and Hypolophinae. A morphologically based r...
Article
A new dwarf wedgefish, Rhynchobatus cooki sp. nov. is described from a single female from a Jakarta fish market (Indo-nesia) and 11 specimens collected at Jurong fish market (Singapore). First collected in 1934, the broader ichthyological community have been aware of this distinctive but little known ray since the late 1990's. Rhynchobatus cooki is...
Article
A single specimen of a new Bathyraja skate was collected by the authors in 2003 during a survey of the deepwater biota of the northern Tasman Sea by the New Zealand FRV Tangaroa. This skate, labelled the 'blonde skate' by voyage participants, is uniformly white on all surfaces of the body and the skin is partly translucent. It belongs to a subgroup...
Article
A new species of fanray (Platyrhina) is described based on four specimens collected in 2015 from the Andaman Sea, off Myanmar. These represent the first records of the family Platyrhinidae from the Indian Ocean with the three other mem-bers of the genus being restricted to the North-West Pacific. The new species differs from its congeners in having...
Article
A new guitarfish, Rhinobatos borneensis sp. nov., is described from material collected at fish markets in Malaysian Borneo (South China Sea). This ray, which is almost plain coloured with faint orange blotches in adults, has a more colourful embryo marked with small pale ocelli with dark centres. Confused with R. Schlegelii (Japan to Taiwan) and it...
Article
The bluespotted maskray, Neotrygon kuhlii (Muller & Henle, 1841), once thought to be widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, consists of a complex of several species and the type series consists of multiple species; its nomenclature is discussed. A lectotype and paralectotype are designated and the species rediagnosed based on the types and a...
Data
Halaphritis platycephala, a new genus and species of the perciform suborder Notothenioidei, is described from coastal reef habitats of temperate Australia. It is a rarely seen, cryptic, nocturnal species that lives deeply concealed in crevices and caves during the day. In external appearance, Halaphritis superficially resembles the parapatric, mono...
Article
A new species of eagle ray, Aetomylaeus caeruleofasciatus sp. nov., is described based on specimens collected in northern Australia and southern Papua New Guinea. The new species is very closely related to Aetomylaeus nichofii and was previously considered to be conspecific with this species. The new species and A. nichofii differ from their congen...
Article
Full-text available
Scientists are increasingly utilising non-traditional data to assist with defining biological baselines and for monitoring environmental change. These data present challenges not encountered with traditional, fit-for-purpose scientific data, including engaging with data owners, building trust and maintaining relationships, analysing and interpretin...
Article
The highly diverse deepwater demersal ichthyofauna of the western Coral Sea was first systematically surveyed in two exploratory voyages in 1985 and 1986, and these fish assemblages have not been investigated at the same level since. Only recently have catch data and specimens, obtained from these first voyages almost 3 decades ago, been rigorously...
Article
Full-text available
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 sho...
Article
Full-text available
The complex multi-gear, multi-species tropical fisheries in developing countries are poorly understood and characterising the landings from these fisheries is often impossible using conventional approaches. A rapid assessment method for characterising landings at fish markets, using an index of abundance and estimated weight within taxonomic groups...
Article
Full-text available
The occurrences of two species of rays of the families Dasyatidae and Rhinopteridae are confirmed for the central and southern Red Sea, respectively. The Oman Cownose Ray, Rhinoptera jayakari, is reported as a new record from the Red Sea on the basis of two males collected at Jizan, southern Saudi Arabia. An adult individual of the Mangrove Whipray...
Article
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An annotated checklist of chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, batoids, and chimaeras) occurring in Taiwanese waters is presented. The checklist is the result of a biodiversity workshop held in Mach 2012 as well as on-going systematic revisions by the authors. The chondrichthyan fauna of Taiwan is one of the richest in the world with the number of specie...
Article
Full-text available
A new species of wedgefish, Rhynchobatus immaculatus sp. nov., is described from a small collection of specimens obtained from fish markets in northern Taiwan. It is probably a medium-sized species (probably attaining ca. 1.5 m TL) because the largest known specimen, an immature male (ca. I m TL), has prolongated dorsal and caudal fins typical of a...
Article
A new long-snouted skate, Dipturus amphispinus sp. nov., is formally described based on material caught in the Sulu Sea and later acquired from fish markets of the central and southern Philippines. It differs from its congeners in the western North Pacific, apart from D. wuhanlingi (East and South China Seas), in having a variably-defined, parallel...
Article
Full-text available
Most of the shark and ray type material at the South China Sea Fisheries Research Institute (SCSFRI) in Guangzhou, China was examined during a museum visit by the senior author in 2009. The status of the shark and ray species described from the South China Sea in the 1980s and deposited in this collection is discussed. Squalus acutirostris is consi...
Article
Two new stingrays, Dasyatis longicauda sp. nov. and Himanturajavaensis sp. nov., are described from material collected in the eastern Indonesian Archipelago. These species, which are both relatively small stingrays (both probably smaller than 40 cm DW), have been confused with closest relatives in the region. Dasyatis longicauda sp. nov., known fro...
Article
Full-text available
Two new coffinfishes, Chaunax nebulosus n. sp. and Chaunax africanus n. sp., are described from the Indian Ocean. Both species belong to the C.fimbriatus-species group which is characterised by having filaments on the dorsal head and a complex color pattern on the dorsal surface. They are morphometrically and meristically conservative but differ in...
Article
Full-text available
A combination of morphological and molecular techniques was used to confirm the existence of a second species of the monotypic centrolophid genus Tubbia. Adults of the seamount rudderfish, T. stewarti sp. nov., which reaches about 56 cm SL, is mesopelagic at depths of 525-1438 m in the temperate waters of the Southern Hemisphere. It has a confirmed...
Article
Full-text available
Maskrays of the genus (Dasyatidae) have dispersed widely in the Indo-West Pacific being represented largely by an assemblage of narrow-ranging coastal endemics. Phylogenetic reconstruction methods reproduced nearly identical and statistically robust topologies supporting the monophyly of the genus within the family Dasyatidae, the genus being consi...
Article
The genus Parequula, which has long been considered monotypic, is reviewed with a new species described from southwestern Australia on the basis of 21 types and 17 non-type specimens (42-81 mm in standard length); its only congener, P. melbournensis (Castelnau), is also redescribed. Parequula elongata n. sp. differs from P. melbournensis in having...
Article
Paracaesio brevidentata, a new species of apsiline lutjanid fish from southeastern Indonesia, is described, bringing the total number of known species in this deepwater snapper genus to nine. The new species is distinguished from its congeners by the following combination of characters: very small teeth in jaws without enlarged canines, tubular lat...
Article
In an effort to provide a framework for the accurate identification of elasmobranchs, driven in large part by the needs of parasitological studies, a comprehensive survey of DNA sequences derived from the mitochondrial NADH2 gene was conducted for elasmobranchs collected from around the world. Analysis was based on sequences derived from 4283 speci...
Article
Four new skates of the genus Notoraja Ishiyama, 1958 are described from the rarely accessed, deep waters off New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji islands, and the Norfolk Ridge. Three of these (N. alisae n. sp., N longiventralis n. sp. and N fijiensis n. sp.) are "velcro skates" which are characterised by their velvety dorsal and ventral surfaces, cover...
Article
A new whipray, Himantura randalli sp. nov., described from material collected off Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, appears to be endemic to the Persian Gulf. It has been frequently confused with forms of the more widely distributed whipray Himantura gerrardi Gray and other presently unidentified species from the Indian Ocean. Himantura randalli sp. nov....
Article
Taxonomic clarity is a fundamental requirement as it forms the foundation of all other life sciences. In the last decade, chondrichthyan taxonomy has undergone a scientific renaissance with >180 new species formally described. This effort encompasses c. 15% of the global chondrichthyan fauna, which consists of 1185 currently recognized species. The...
Article
Full-text available
Two species of spurdog of the genus Squalus occur in the Gulf of Gabes (southern Tunisia, central Mediterranean): the longnose spurdog Squalus blainvillei (Risso, 1827) and a short-snout spurdog of the Squall's megalopscubensis group. Morphometric and meristic data as well as a genetic analyses (DNA inter-simple sequence repeat markers and molecula...
Article
In recent years there has been considerable research activity devoted to the triglid fauna of Australia, and included within this work has been an investigation of the genus Pterygotrigla. This fauna is considered to be amongst the most diverse of any region and multiple undescribed taxa occur in these seas. Two new species belonging to the subgenu...
Article
Two new species of the softnose skate genus Brochiraja are described based on material collected from the Norfolk Ridge in the northern Tasman Sea (South-West Pacific). Most of this material was collected in 2003 by the New Zealand vessel, RV Tangaroa, during the NORFANZ voyage. These species extend the known range of the genus northward along the...
Article
The major biogeographic structure and affinities of the Australian chondrichthyan fauna were investigated at both interregional and intraregional scales and comparisons made with adjacent bioregions. Faunal lists were compiled from six geographical regions with species from these regions assigned to distributional classes and broad habitat categori...
Article
A second nominal species of the pseudotriakid genus Gollum, otherwise known as false catsharks or gollumsharks, is de-scribed on the basis of seven specimens collected from the Sulu Sea. Gollum suluensis sp. nov., was discovered at the Puer-to Princesa fish market in Palawan during a project initiated by the World Wildlife Fund during the 1990s to...
Article
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Fishes were collected from seamounts and insular slopes of the northern Tasman and southern Coral Seas in the environs of the Reinga Ridge, Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise, at depths ranging from 49 to 1927 m. A total of 348 demersal fish species in 99 families, which were collected from 135 samples taken with a variety of sampling gear, greatly i...
Article
Full-text available
Several lines of evidence show that ocean warming off the east coast of Tasmania is the result of intensification of the East Australian Current (EAC). Increases in the strength, duration and frequency of southward incursions of warm, nutrient poor EAC water transports heat and biota to eastern Tasmania. This shift in large-scale oceanography is re...
Article
Aim To investigate the biogeographical structure and affinities of the Australian marine demersal ichthyofauna at the scale of provinces and bathomes for the purposes of regional marine planning. Location Australia. Methods Patterns of distribution in the Australian fish fauna, at both intra-regional and global scales, were examined using a science...
Article
Aim South-eastern Australia is a climate change hotspot with well-documented recent changes in its physical marine environment. The impact on and temporal responses of the biota to change are less well understood, but appear to be due to influences of climate, as well as the non-climate related past and continuing human impacts. We attempt to resol...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The synergies between two systems studies—one ecological and the other socioeconomic— are explored to determine how the stability of structures affects exchanges within a system. The ecological study is part of a whole-of-systems approach evolved through applications in an Australian and Pacific Island context to address regional planning. The core...
Article
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A conceptual hierarchical framework for classifying marine biodiversity on the sea floor, used successfully for continental-scale bioregionalisation and adopted to guide marine resource planning and management in Australia, has wider application at a global scale. It differs from existing schemes for classifying marine biota by explicitly recognizi...
Article
Port Davey and associated Bathurst Harbour in south‐western Tasmania represent one of the world's most anomalous estuarine systems owing to an unusual combination of environmental factors. These include: (i) large uninhabited catchment protected as a National Park; (ii) ria geomorphology but with fjord characteristics that include a shallow entranc...
Article
Full-text available
A new dasyatid stingray, Pastinachus stellurostris sp. nov., is described from a few specimens collected from Indonesian Borneo, near Pontianak (West Kalimantan). It shares with P. solocirostris, which occurs in the same bioregion, a similar disc shape and a spiny, angular snout. The first specimen collected was initially confused with P. solociros...
Article
A new species of deep water scorpionfish, Phenacoscorpius longirostris, is described on the basis of two specimens from the Norfolk Island Ridge and Lord Howe Rise, northern Tasman Sea, at depths of 300-322 m. The new species is distinguished from other congeners by the following combination of characters: all pectoral-fin rays unbranched; no palat...
Article
Full-text available
The family Brachionichthyidae is represented by at least 14 small, Australian endemic, lophiiform fishes distributed from central eastern Australia to the Great Australian Bight. All but three of these species occur in the seas off Tasmania. The group is comprised of two recognised genera, Brachionichthys Bleeker and Sympterichthys Gill, and three...
Article
A new arhynchobatid skate of the genus Notoraja is described from five specimens collected on the slopes of the Norfolk Ridge between 1195 and 1313 m depth. The new species is distinct from its sibling species from southern Australian waters, the Blue Skate (N. azurea), by its smaller size, several morphometric and meristic characters, thorn patter...
Article
A new arhynchobatid skate of the genus Notoraja is described from five specimens collected on the slopes of the Norfolk Ridge between 1195 and 1313 m depth. The new species is distinct from its sibling species from southern Australian waters, the Blue Skate (N. azurea), by its smaller size, several morphometric and meristic characters, thorn patter...
Book
Full-text available
To date, marine bioregionalisations of the Australian continental region (used in regional marine planning and the establishment of the NRSMPA) examined the provincial structuring of the shelf, and the biomic and provincial structuring of the slope. This study expands on the previous bioregionalisations by incorporating extensively updated data on...
Data
FIGURE 3. Dorsal view of head of Notoraja sapphira sp. nov., adult male holotype (NMNZ P 39528, 360 mm TL) showing snout, orbito-spiracular and nuchal regions.
Data
FIGURE 5. Lateral view of dorsal and caudal fins of Notoraja sapphira sp. nov., adult male holotype (NMNZ P 39528, 360 mm TL).