Revised 7 Nov. 2024
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Glaucostegus Bonaparte 1846 glaucus, from glaukós (Gr. γλαυκός), bluish-green or gray, sea-colored, or hoary blue; stegus, from stégō (Gr. στέγω), to cover, etymology not explained, perhaps referring to bluish rostral cartilage seen in some specimens of G. thouin and G. halavi, both of which Bonaparte included (without descriptions) in the genus

Glaucostegus cemiculus (Geoffroy St. Hilaire 1817) etymology not explained, perhaps diminutive of cemo-, from kēmós (Gr. κημός), muzzle, referring to narrower rostral ridges compared with Rhinobatos rhinobatos, its presumed congener at the time, and/or to its “habit of digging with its muzzle in the mud looking for food” (translation)

Glaucostegus granulatus (Cuvier 1829) –atus (L.), provided with: granum (L.), seed or grain, referring to its shagreen-like granulated skin

Glaucostegus halavi (Fabricius 1775) Arabic vernacular for this species (described from Saudi Arabia) [authorship often given as (Forsskål 1775)]

Glaucostegus microphthalmus (Teng 1959) small-eyed, from mikrós (Gr. μικρός), small, and ophthalmós (Gr. ὀφθαλμός), eye, referring to eye much smaller than spiracle

Glaucostegus obtusus (Müller & Henle 1841) Latin for blunt or dull, referring to its broad and blunt snout

Glaucostegus petiti (Chabanaud 1929) in honor of French zoologist-anatomist Georges Petit (1892–1973), Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris), who collected holotype

Glaucostegus spinosus (Günther 1870) Latin for thorny, referring to compressed spines with dilated base along median line of back, on shoulder, and above eye and spiracle

Glaucostegus thouin (Anonymous [Lacepède] 1798) in honor of French botanist André Thouin (1746–1824), who helped secure a specimen in Holland and transported it to France [published as a vernacular name by Lacepède in 1798, then Latinized in an anonymous book review later that year, from whence the name dates; presumably a noun in apposition, without the genitive “i”]

Glaucostegus typus (Anonymous [Bennett] 1830) Latin for model or example, allusion not explained; Bennett may have intended this species (based on Rhinobatus rhinobatus of Bloch & Schneider 1801) to be the type of Rhinobatus (=Rhinobatos Linck 1790, Rhinobatidae)

Glaucostegus younholeei Habib & Islam 2021 in honor of Youn-Ho Lee, Ph.D. supervisor of the senior author and Principal Research Scientist/Professor and Vice-President of the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), who “significantly” contributed to the knowledge of marine biodiversity, DNA barcoding and population genetics of marine organisms in the Western Pacific and north Bay of Bengal, where this guitarfish occurs