Spatangus purpureus Müller, 1776

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 : 174-175

Erroneous— Spatangus purpureus Müller, 1776

Reports for the Azores:

Spatangus purpureus M̹ller, 1776— Agassiz 1881: 171; Bell 1892: 165–167, pl. 16, fig. 10; Mortensen 1907: 123–128, pl. 2, figs. 8, 12, 14, 16, pl. 16, figs. 1–2, 5–10, 22, 24–25, 27, 29, 31–32, 34, 1927a: 328–329, fig. 190; Koehler 1914b: 279, 1921b: 129–130, figs. 89–90; H.L. Clark 1917: 234; Nobre 1938: 127–128, fig. 55; Harvey 1956: 67; Micael et al. 2012: 4.

See: Mortensen (1951b: 10–14); Schultz (2006: 427–428, figs. 802–804).

Occurrence: Northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea ( Tortonese 1965), from Iceland and Scandinavia along European and African coasts to Senegal ( Mortensen 1951b); possibly also occurring in Cape Verde and Angola ( Mortensen 1951a).

Depth: 0–900 m ( Koehler 1914b).

Habitat: soft substrates, preferably on coarse sand or gravel, in which it lies wholly buried where it feeds on all sorts of bottom particles and organisms ( Mortensen 1927a).

Larval stage: planktotrophic (c. 3 weeks; Mortensen 1913).

Remarks: Agassiz (1881) identified the species Spatangus purpureus among the material collected by H.M.S. Challenger (sta 75: 38°37’N, 28°30’W, 92–165 m) in Azorean waters (no description was given). However, the existence of such specimen(s) could not be confirmed by H.L. Clark (1925) or Mortensen (1951b). Furthermore, the only other H.M.S. Challenger specimen identified by Agassiz (1881) as belonging to this species (off Bermuda) later proved to be a misidentification (see Mortensen 1907). Thus, the presence in the Azores of S. purpureus remains unconfirmed.