Bathypectinura heros ( Lyman, 1879 )

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 : 162

Erroneous— Bathypectinura heros ( Lyman, 1879)

Reports for the Azores:

Bathypectinura heros ( Lyman, 1879) — Paterson 1985: 95–96, fig. 38; Borrero-Pérez et al. 2008: 199–200, figs. 17G, H; Benavides-Serrato et al. 2011: 336–337; Smirnov et al. 2014: 208.

Type locality: Aru , Indonesia (5°41’S, 134°04’E) .

See: Lyman (1879: 48–49, pl. 14, figs. 389–391); Madsen (1973: 133–142).

Occurrence: cosmopolitan, found in most oceans except the Arctic and Southern Oceans; in the Atlantic is found in the west from off North Carolina to the Caribbean and in the east from the Bay of Biscay to Angola, including Cape Verde ( Madsen 1973).

Depth: 240– 3,150 m ( Madsen 1973, Hernández-Herrejon et al. 2008).

Habitat: soft substrates, from mud to clay; feeds on organic detritus, foraminiferans and Sargassum ; capable of active swimming ( Madsen 1973, Pawson 1982).

Remarks: Paterson (1985) listed the Azores in the geographical distribution of Bathypectinura heros as the southern limit in the NE Atlantic ignoring records further south reported, for example, by Madsen (1977), a work referred by the author. Paterson himself identified specimens belonging to B. heros , among material retrieved in NW Africa, at lower latitudes than the archipelago. Subsequent inclusions of the archipelago in this species geographical range were based on Paterson (1985). We could not find the original record for the Azores. Confirmed records of this species derive from the Michael Sars cruise just southwest of the Azorean waters (sta 53: 34°59’N, 33°01’W, 2,615 –2,865 m) ( Mortensen 1927a, as Bathypectinura elata ; Grieg 1932, as Pectinura elata ). Taking in account the species wide geographical range in the North Atlantic it is likely that it occurs in the Azores, however, in our opinion the presence of this species inside the archipelago waters still needs to be confirmed.