First record of the marbled ray, (Elasmobranchii: Dasyatidae), from Greece (central Aegean Sea).

Background: Currently, seven dasyatid species have been described in the Mediterranean Sea: , , , , , and . Papaconstantinou (2014) listed four species of Dasyatidae occurring in Greece (, , and ; the latter was a case of misidentification and it is currently identified as , according to genetic analysis). However, the marbled stingray () was not amongst them. Here, the presence of was examined for the first time in Greece.

New Information: The present study provides updated information on the geographical distribution of in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. A juvenile male stingray was captured in February 2019, during an onshore survey in Maliakos Gulf, located in the central Aegean Sea, Greece. The ray was examined at the Fisheries laboratory of the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR) in Athens and was identified as . Morphological characters were recorded and DNA barcoding was applied to confirm the species identification. The combination of the two methods verified the occurrence of the marbled ray in the Greek waters. This is the first record of from the Aegean Sea.