Luidia sarsii sarsii Düben & Koren, in Düben, 1844

Madeira, Patrícia, Kroh, Andreas, Cordeiro, Ricardo, De, António M., Martins, Frias & Ávila, Sérgio P., 2019, The Echinoderm Fauna of the Azores (NE Atlantic Ocean), Zootaxa 4639 (1), pp. 1-231 : 80-81

Luidia sarsii sarsii Düben & Koren, in Düben, 1844

Reports for the Azores:

Luidia sarsii D̹ben & Koren, in D̹ben, 1844 — $ Koehler 1909: 59; $ Grieg 1932: 24; $ Tortonese 1965: 150–152, fig. 69; A.M. Clark 1982a: 175–180, figs. 1c, 2c, g, 3m–o, v, 6; Sneli 1999: 233–234;

Luidia sarsii sarsii D̹ben & Koren, 1845— Gage et al. 1983: 272; A.M. Clark & Downey 1992: 18–20, figs. 7m, n, v, 8i, pl. 2, fig. B; Pereira 1997: 336; García-Diez et al. 2005: 47; Micael & Costa 2010: 322; Micael et al. 2012: 5.

Type locality: Norway (lectotype). See: A.M. Clark (1982a); A.M. Clark & Downey (1992).

Occurrence: Mediterranean Sea and Northeast Atlantic, from Norway and the Faeroe Bank ( Sneli 1999) south to Cape Blanc ( Mauritania; A.M. Clark 1982a) including the Azores ( Koehler 1909); the subspecies L. sarsii africana Sladen, 1889 is restricted to Namibian and South African waters, whereas the subspecies L. sarsii elegans Perrier, 1875 is known from the western Atlantic waters (A.M. Clark 1982a).

Depth: 9– 1,300 m ( Sneli 1999); tends to live in deeper cold waters at its southern geographical range ( Picton 1993); AZO:? 100–200 m ( Koehler 1909, Grieg 1932).

Habitat: mud, shell-sand, gravel and stones ( Sneli 1999); night-active, burying itself in the sand during the day ( Picton 1993).

Larval stage: planktotrophic ( Domanski 1984).

Remarks: the presence of Luidia sarsii in the Azores is based solely on three historical records. Koehler (1909) identified a small damaged specimen (R = 50 mm) among the material retrieved by a bottom trawl at Princesse Alice Seabank (sta 899: 37°57’00”N, 29°14’45”W, 200 m). Interestingly, the second known record is from Grieg (1932) who identified a juvenile (with adhering remnants from the larval stage; R = 4.5 mm) in a pelagic haul at a depth of just 100 m, 3,139 m above the reported bottom depth. This animal may well represent a late stage in what has been designated in the literature as ‘giant larvae’. Luidia sarsii is characterized by an abnormal large bipinnaria larva capable of maintaining planktotrophic activity in the water column long after the development of the post-larval sea star rudiment (see Domanski 1984). Tortonese (1965) is responsible for the most recent record of this species in the Azores, though he listed material from the archipelago without giving further details on the source of the material. Regardless, the scarcity of documented records could be a result of the apparent bathymetrical distribution of this species in the archipelago, which coincides with the least studied depth range in the area (>50 and <200 m).