Some remarks on the identity of the Japanese rays Raja Kenojei Müller & Henle, 1841, and Raja Meerdervoortii Bleeker, 1860

Rejecting without valid argumentation a lectotype selection for Raja kenojei Müller & Henle, 1841, by the present author (1947), Ishiyama (1967) indicated another of the four Leiden types as such. Both selected specimens are shown to represent only the different sexes of the same species, which is not conspecific with R. kenojei sensu Ishiyama et al. (= ? R. japonica Nyström, 1887) but rather with R. porosa Günther, 1847, as understood by Ishiyama. One of the R. kenojei types is referred to R. meerdervoortii Bleeker, 1860, a distinct species not identical with R. kenojei in either interpretation, and of which R. macrophthalma Ishiyama, 1950, may well prove to be a junior synonym. Müller & Henle's coloured illustration of R. kenojei, made after a Japanese original, evidently represents a juvenile rajid specimen of uncertain identity.