Soluta Jaekel, 1901

Zamora, Samuel & Gutiérrez-Marco, Juan Carlos, 2023, Filling the Silurian gap of solutan echinoderms with the description of new species of Dehmicystis from Spain, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 68 (2), pp. 185-192 : 187

Class Soluta Jaekel, 1901

Remarks.— Soluta is herein considered as a class of echinoderms following Noailles et al. (2014). Previous workers such as David et al. (2000) suggested they possess a feeding appendage in the form of a brachiole, whereas others like Smith (2005) thought they had a true arm. We consider solutans as distinct from any other blastozoan group because of the lack of radial symmetry, distinct oral area and absence of brachioles, and treat them as a plesiomorphic group of early pre-radial echinoderms according with Smith (2005, 2008). Antero-posterior orientation follows Caster (1968) with the homoiostele at the posterior pole. Rahman and Lintz (2012) in the description of Dehmicystis considered the thecal surface bearing the ambulacrum (and associated mouth) as the oral surface, with the opposite face as the aboral surface (as suggested by Kolata et al. 1977). This does not necessarily imply direct homologies with other echinoderms. Descriptive terminology follows a recent review by Noailles et al. (2014).