The extent of devil ray (Mobulidae) distribution around the Arabian Peninsula is somewhat unclear. Older texts on the regional ichthyofauna list Mobula diabolus as the only representative to occur in the region (Katsuzo and Abe, 1986; Smith and Heemstra, 1986), and this defunct species is thought to be synonymous with a number of valid Mobula spp. Manilo and Bogorodsky (2003) examined historical records and determined that four devil ray species occurred in the Arabian Sea, namely M. kuhlii (Mu¨ller and Henle), M. thurstoni (Lloyd), M. eregoodootenke (Bleeker) and M. japanica (Mu¨ller and Henle), leaving M. tarapacana (Philippi) as the only other Indian Ocean devil ray yet to be recorded in Arabian waters. Although there has also been a purported record of M. mobular (Bonnaterre) from the Indian Ocean (Kapoor et al., 2002), it has been suggested that this species and M. japanica might be Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.