The whitespotted whipray Maculabatis gerrardi is exploited in Tanzania for its meat, skin and cartilage, and is classified as an endangered species by the IUCN. A mitochondrial COI gene fragment from 105 M. gerrardi individuals obtained from four unprotected and one protected marine area in Tanzania was used to determine the present genetic diversity, demographics, and effective population size of whiprays. Lower levels of nuc...

Western Indian Ocean countries have banned elasmobranch finning and enacted legislation to protect endangered elasmobranchs, however finned and morphologically deformed specimens are still landed and traded on Tanzanian fish markets. Such specimens are difficult to identify morphologically, and it is possible that protected elasmobranchs are among these. This study used DNA barcoding to uncover protected elasmobranchs in 102 s...