Aberrant hermaphroditism in striped panray, Zanobatus schoenleinii (Zanobatidae) from the coast of Senegal (e-tropical Atlantic)

Abstract

A case of hermaphroditism is described in the present paper from a specimen of striped panray, Zanobatus schoenleiniii (Muller and Henle, 1841), captured off Dakar, Senegal, eastern tropical Atlantic. It measured 295 mm for disc width (DW), 530 mm for total length (TL) and its total body weight (TBW) reached 1017 g. It exhibited a single clasper, on the left side. Internally, the left genital apparatus was female, and the right male. It was an aberrant case of hermaphroditism due to the fact that lacking of clasper generally matches with a female genital apparatus. A relationship DW versus TWB expressed in logarithmic co-ordinates showed that the specimen developed in the wild similarly to normal specimens. The causes of this abnormality remain obscure but the role of pollutants in the local marine area cannot be totally ruled out.