Mobulidae

Mobulidae
Temporal range: Early Paleocene to recent Possible Late Cretaceous record
Mobula birostris at Hin Daeng, Thailand
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii
Division: Batomorphi
Order: Myliobatiformes
Family: Mobulidae
Gill, 1893
Genera
  • Mobula
  • Manta (Now considered to be a synonym of Mobula)

The Mobulidae are a family of cartilaginous fish that includes both devil rays (Mobula) and manta rays, most members of this family are large species living in the open ocean rather than on the sea bottom.

Taxonomy

The Mobulidae have been variously considered a subfamily of the Myliobatidae by some authors, and a distinct family by others, though recent work favors the latter interpretation. Two genera within the family have been traditionally recognized, Manta and Mobula, but recent DNA analysis shows that Mobula is paraphyletic to manta rays, making Manta a junior synonym of Mobula and Mobula the only extant genus of the family.

Fossil record

Several genera of fossil mobulids are known from teeth, including Archaeomanta, Burnhamia, Eomobula, and Paramobula.[page needed] The earliest records of mobulids are of Archaeomanta from the Early Paleocene. A potentially earlier record may be Cretomanta from the mid-Cretaceous, but this genus may represent a planktivorous shark potentially related to Aquilolamna.

References

  1. 1 2 "PBDB Taxon". paleobiodb.org. Archived from the original on 2025-08-12. Retrieved 2026-02-07.
  2. ↑ Theodore Gill (1893). "Families and Subfamilies of Fishes". Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences. 6 (6): 130.
  3. ↑ https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/182/1/50/3886052?login=false
  4. ↑ Nelson, Joseph S. (2006). "Subfamily Mobulinae (devil rays)". Fishes of the World (4th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley. p. 82. ISBN 9780471756446.
  5. ↑ Nelson, Joseph S.; Grande, Terry C.; Wilson, Mark V. H. (2016). "Subfamily Mobulinae (devil rays)". Fishes of the World (5th ed.). Hoboken: Wiley. pp. 94–95. doi:10.1002/9781119174844.ch2.
  6. ↑ White, W. T.; Last, P. R. (2016). "Devilrays: Family Mobulidae". In Last, Peter R.; White, William T.; de Carvalho, Marceo R.; Séret, Bernard; Stehmann, Matthias F. W.; Naylor, Gavin J. P. (eds.). Rays of the World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 741–749. ISBN 9781501705328.
  7. ↑ White, William T.; Corrigan, Shannon; Yang, Lei; Henderson, Aaron C.; Bazinet, Adam L.; Swofford, David L.; Naylor, Gavin J. P. (2017). "Phylogeny of the manta and devilrays (Chondrichthyes: mobulidae), with an updated taxonomic arrangement for the family". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. zlx018: 50–75. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx018. hdl:10379/14421.
  8. ↑ Cappetta, H. (1987). Chondrichthyes II Mesozoic and Cenozoic Elasmobranchii. Handbook of Paleoichthyology. Vol. 3B. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag.
  9. ↑ Herman, J.; Hovestadt-Euller, M.; Hovestadt, D. C. (1989). "Additions to the Eocene fish fauna of Belgium. 9. Discovery of Eomobula gen. et. sp. nov. (Mobulidae, Chondrichthyes) from the Ypresian". Tertiary Research. 10 (4). Leiden: 175–178.
  10. ↑ Cicimurri, David J.; Knight, James L. (2009). "Late Oligocene Sharks and Rays from the Chandler Bridge Formation, Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 54 (4): 627–647. doi:10.4202/app.2008.0077.
  11. ↑ Nagrodski, Matthew; Shimada, Kenshu; Schumacher, Bruce A. (2012-10-01). "Marine vertebrates from the Hartland Shale (Upper Cretaceous: Upper Cenomanian) in southeastern Colorado, USA". Cretaceous Research. 37: 76–88. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2012.03.007. ISSN 0195-6671.
  12. ↑ Vullo, Romain; Frey, Eberhard; Ifrim, Christina; González González, Margarito A.; Stinnesbeck, Eva S.; Stinnesbeck, Wolfgang (2021-03-19). "Manta-like planktivorous sharks in Late Cretaceous oceans". Science. 371 (6535): 1253–1256. doi:10.1126/science.abc1490.