Recently described H. tutul is one of the more commonly held whiprays in captivity, very often incorrectly identified as H. undulata or H. leoparda.
Picture taken in 2018.
@zoocentral The identification of this genus in captivity is a complete mess. I have a friend who is been looking into this for years and he is confident that undulata is absent from captivity outside of Asia. That's probably the same for leoparda, although way more common in general than undulata. Uarnak and tutul are by far the two most common species in captivity. I have also seen australis in Europe, I cannot say for sure that this species is not kept in America. All the species itself can barely be told apart with certainty, but here is what I know: Undulata has lines, not spots. Leoparda has big spots, bigger than uarnak and tutul. Those last two are a pain to tell apart. I think the 'square spotted ones with closed-off black lines' should be tutul. The ones with just little black spots is likely uarnak. But sources suggest that it is far more difficult than this. As far as I know, australis cannot be told apart either unless genetically.
@Sicarius Thank you for the information. Sounds like a very messy situation to say the least. I would love to get some funding so we can do genetic testing.
