India's Zoological Survey describes a new electric ray from the deep Arabian Sea

Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) have described a new species of electric ray from the deep waters of the southeastern Arabian Sea, the Indian government's Press Information Bureau said on 27 October. The species, Tetronarce ramanamurthyi, has been given the common name Arabian black electric ray.

Nine specimens from the deep

The ray was described from nine specimens collected off India's southwestern coast. It is the first confirmed record of the genus Tetronarce in the northern Indian Ocean, which the ZSI says sheds new light on the poorly explored biodiversity of India's deep-sea ecosystems. The findings were published in the taxonomy journal Zootaxa.

The new species has a uniformly dark bluish-black to dark-brown back, no small projections around its spiracles (the breathing openings behind the eyes), a disc wider than it is long, relatively large pores on its head and small electric organs. It has 99 vertebrae. DNA sequencing of two mitochondrial genes confirmed it as a distinct evolutionary lineage, with a genetic divergence of 2.2% to 6.7% from its closest relatives.

Part of India’s Deep Ocean Mission

The research was carried out under the Ministry of Earth Sciences' Deep Ocean Mission, which studies the taxonomy, distribution, biology and status of deep-sea cartilaginous fishes, the group that includes sharks, rays and chimaeras, in Indian waters. The discovery was led by Dr. K. K. Bineesh and Anil Kasinath of the ZSI's Marine Biology Regional Centre in Chennai, with Dr. David A. Ebert of the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, San Jose State University, in the United States.

The species is named after Dr. M. V. Ramana Murthy, mission director of the Deep Ocean Mission, for his contributions to marine science, ocean engineering and marine hazard mitigation.

“Deep-sea marine habitats remain among the most difficult ecosystems to study.” — Zoological Survey of India research team

The team says combining classical anatomy with molecular tools can uncover hidden marine life and set baselines for ocean conservation, and expects further discoveries from continued deep-sea exploration. The release did not say whether the species faces any threats. More ocean discoveries are collected under marine biology.