Ophiacantha aristata Koehler, 1895c

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 : 33

Ophiacantha aristata Koehler, 1895c

Reports for the Azores:

Ophiacantha aristata Koehler, 1895 c— $ Koehler 1896a: 212, 1898: 55, 1906b: 288–289, 1909: 183, pl. 26, figs. 5–6, 1921a: 2; Mortensen 1927a: 191, 193–194, fig. 107; Grieg 1932: 38; Nobre 1938: 76–77; García-Diez et al. 2005: 49.

Type locality: Bay of Biscay .

See: Koehler (1896c: 81–86, figs. 43, 44); Rodrigues et al. (2011: 7, fig. 2).

Occurrence: Northeast Atlantic, from the Reykjanes Ridge (S of Iceland; Copley et al. 1996) and British Isles to NW Africa ( Paterson 1985), including the Azores and Canaries ( Koehler 1909).

Depth: 658– 1,805 m ( Copley et al. 1996); AZO: 1,095 –1,740 m ( Koehler 1909, 1921a).

Habitat: soft bottoms, mud to sand ( Koehler 1909) and on corals ( Rodrigues et al. 2011).

Remarks: Koehler (1896a, 1898, 1906b, 1909, 1921a) recorded Ophiacantha aristata among the material collected by the main oceanographic cruises crossing the Azorean archipelago waters at the time (Hirondelle, Talisman, Princesse Alice ). This species is only known in the archipelago from Koehler’s historical reports.