 In 1775 , Carsten Niebuhr published Descriptiones animalium – avium , amphibiorum , piscium , insectorum , vermium : quæ in itinere orientali observavit , the work of his late friend , the Swedish naturalist Peter Forsskål . Within Forsskål had described Raja sephen , now commonly known as the cowtail stingray , with a spotted variant he called uarnak , derived from an Arabic word that describes the color pattern . No type specimen was designated . Forsskål 's account formed the basis for two subsequent writings that named the spotted ray as a distinct species : Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre 's Raia scherit in 1788 , and Johann Friedrich Gmelin 's Raja uarnak in 1789 . Although Bonnaterre 's name was published first and thus would have had precedence , later authorities have regarded Forsskål 's uarnak as the earliest available name even though it was not initially part of a binomial . Consequently , modern sources give uarnak as the valid specific epithet and either Gmelin or Forsskål as the species authority . In 1837 , Johannes Peter Müller and Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle included the reticulate whipray in the newly created genus Himantura ; David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann made it the type species in 1896 . 
