atra, Taeniura Macleay [W.] 1883:598 [Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales v. 7 (pt 4); ref. 17586] Port Moresby District, Papua New Guinea. Holotype (unique): AMS I.9762. •Synonym of Pastinachus sephen (Forsskål 1775) -- (Last & Stevens 1994:410 [ref. 23873] as Pastinachus sephen ater, Last et al. 2005:1 [ref. 28346], Paxton et al. 2006:194 [ref. 28995]). •Tentatively valid -- (Last & Manjaji-Matsumoto 2010:115 [ref. 30854]). •Valid as Pastinachus atrus (Macleay 1883) -- (Last et al. 2010:121 [ref. 30855], Last el al. 2010:222 [ref. 32461], Larson et al. 2013:20 [ref. 32988], Weigmann 2016:140 [ref. 34211] see remarks, and misspelled atrus). •Valid as Pastinachus ater (Macleay 1883) -- (Kottelat 2013:27 [ref. 32989], Last & Yearsley 2016:6 [ref. 34940], Last et al. 2016:364 [ref. 34581], Last et al. 2016:594 [ref. 35010], White et al. 2017:248 [ref. 35860], Fricke et al. 2018:26 [ref. 35805], Kumar et al. 2018:298 [ref. 36178], White & Ko'ou 2018:59 [ref. 35922], Eagderi et al. 2019:10 [ref. 37020], Fernando et al. 2019:215 [ref. 36642], Bineesh et al. 2020:24 [ref. 37641], Moore et al. 2020:109 [ref. 37357], Psomadakis et al. 2020:208 [ref. 37272], Ebert et al. 2021:94 [ref. 38234], Haque et al. 2021:214 [ref. 38677], Gloerfelt-Tarp & Kailola 2022:40 [ref. 41223], Hsu et al. 2022:4 [ref. 39567], Manjaji-Matsumoto et al. 2022:609 [ref. 39674], Glaus et al. 2024:7 [ref. 40788], Allen & Erdmann 2024:68 [ref. 40796]). Current status: Valid as Pastinachus ater (Macleay 1883). Dasyatidae: Hypolophinae. Distribution: Indo-West Pacific: northern KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), East Africa, Persian Gulf, Seychelles and Madagascar east to New Caledonia and Fiji, south to northern Australia. Habitat: freshwater, brackish, marine.