Pteroplatytrygon violacea (Bonaparte, 1832) Pelagic Stingray Trygon violacea Bonaparte, 1832: fasc. 1, punt. 6, Pl. 155. Syntypes: ANSP 385, ANSP 386,?NMW 91239 (dry). Type locality: Italy, western Mediterranean Sea. Local synonymy: Trygon purpurea: Smith [A.] in M̹ller & Henle, 1841: 160, pl. 52 (type locality South Africa, no known types; based on drawing by A. Smith [BMNH]); Bleeker, 1860: 58; Gilchrist, 1902: 169. Dasybatis purpurea: Thompson, 1914: 163; von Bonde & Swart, 1923: 16; Barnard, 1925: 79; Barnard, 1959: 27. Dasyatis purpurea: Barnard, 1934: 229. Dasyatis purpureus: Smith, 1949a: 71; Smith, 1961a: 71; Smith, 1965: 71. Dasyatis violacea: Compagno & Heemstra, 1984: 5; Compagno, 1986: 137, fig. 30.5. Pteroplatytrygon violacea: Compagno et al., 1989: 104, pl.; NPOA, 2013: 61; Ebert & Dando, 2014: 95, fig.; da Silva et al., 2015: 246; Ebert & van Hees, 2015: 147; Last et al., 2016h: 356; Last et al., 2016i: 604, fig. 25.75; Weigmann, 2016: 976. South Africa voucher material: SAIAB 25936. South African distribution: False Bay (WC) to Algoa Bay (EC), but likely wider ranging along the coast. Remarks: The species has a complicated taxonomic history in South Africa having been confused with Pateobatis fai in KZN. Smith [A.] (in M̹ller & Henle, 1841) described Trygon purpurea (= P. violacea) citing South Africa as the type locality, but the species apparently was not seen again until a specimen was caught off Kalk Bay in False Bay in 1933 (Barnard, 1934). Although Wallace (1967c) referred to Dasyatis purpureus, his description and figure 24 are clearly that of P. fai or a similar looking species, but not P. violacea. The species was once thought to be quite rare in South Africa, with only a few specimens known (Compagno et al., 1989). However, it appears to be somewhat commonly caught in the chokka (= squid) fishery, but is usually not reported as bycatch. Conservation status: LC (2019).

Published as part of Ebert, David A., Wintner, Sabine P. & Kyne, Peter M., 2021, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of South Africa, pp. 1-127 in Zootaxa 4947 (1) on page 95, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4947.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/4614567