The Zoo has her signed as "Himantura australis", but im not sure if that's correct. I put a picture of her pattern since that's apparently the best way to tell the various species apart since this is my first time ever seeing her
So, I think I can start by ruling some species out. It definitely isn’t a leopard whipray (Himantura leoparda) or fine-spotted leopard whipray (H. tutul) - both of those have much more defined roseate spots. I would say it’s also unlikely that it is a honeycomb whipray (H. undulata), as they have more of a linear or lenticular pattern. My best educated guess is that it is indeed either a reticulate (H. uarnak) or Australian (H. australis). Those have very similar patterns and are almost completely indistinguishable except for by very minute morphological characteristics and genetics - and also by region, as it’s been determined that reticulates are NOT found in Australia.
So I think we could probably say which one PDZA has here if we can get any info on exactly where she was sourced from. If she came from Australia I’d say their ID is correct!
