The East Pacific / South Pacific Boundary: New taxa and occurrences from Rapa Nui (Easter Island), New Caledonia and adjacent regions
Author
Mah, Christopher L.
text
Zootaxa
2021
2021-06-02
4980
3
401
450
journal article
5948
10.11646/zootaxa.4980.3.1
f36e1c1f-1bfa-4fbc-b2dd-5edf6c7173af
1175-5326
4896889
F1FCA8AC-A984-4547-8A05-F1993BDAEE7C
OPHIDIASTERIDAE
Verrill, 1870
Comments.
Mah & Foltz (2011)
showed the
Ophidiasteridae
as paraphyletic with some genera supported as members of the
Goniasteridae
.
Mah (2017)
provisionally diagnosed the
Ophidiasteridae
and outlined several of the morphological character diagnoses for the
Ophidiasteridae
throughout its history.
Mah’s (2017)
treatment included efforts to separate genera such as
Neoferdina
and
Ferdina
into the
Goniasteridae
and to establish some character boundaries between the
Goniasteridae
and the
Ophidiasteridae
.
Although the taxonomic boundaries of the
Ophidiasteridae
has not been comprehensively established, data from
Mah & Foltz (2011)
suggest that taxa, such as
Linckia
or
Leiaster
, which are similar to more typological forms, such as
Ophidiaster
are supported as members of the
Ophidiasteridae
.
Mah (2017)
outlined diagnostic characters for the
Ophidiasteridae
, including the small disk, elongate, cylindrical arms, granular covering and putatively, tesselate abactinal plates as well as the identical appearance of the marginal and abactinal plates. However, both Mah & Foltz (2017) and some treatments of ophidiasterid affinities, such as those of Fisher (1919: 370) suggested that some genera, lacking the identical marginal and abactinal plate character, such as
Narcissia
could be justifiably placed among the
Goniasteridae
, suggesting further adjustments to the
Ophidiasteridae
are warranted.