Calyptraster coa Sladen, 1882

Gondim, Anne Isabelley, Christoffersen, Martin Lindsey & Pereira Dias, Thelma Lucia, 2014, Taxonomic guide and historical review of starfishes in northeastern Brazil (Echinodermata, Asteroidea), ZooKeys 449, pp. 1-56 : 13

Calyptraster coa Sladen, 1882 Figure 9a-h

Calyptraster coa Sladen, 1882: 207. Tommasi 1970: 13.

Calyptraster personatus Madsen, 1947: 3-7, figs 1-2.

Material examined.

MZUSP (without registration number), 1spec., W Besnardi, dredging 5142. MZUSP (without registration number), 2spec., W Besnardi, dredging 5363.

Type locality.

Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil ( Clark and Downey 1992).

Description.

Body pentagonal (Fig. 9a, b, g, h). Five short arms. Supradorsal membrane thin and transparent (Fig. 9a). Spiracules moderately large, numerous, irregularly distributed. Oscule large, surrounded by long oscular valves with an enlarged extremity (Fig. 9g). Abactinal surface with paxillae. Paxillae with long peduncles and a crown of 5 to 6 long and vitreous spinelets (Fig. 9c). Skeletal figs narrow, long and vitreous, forming a reticulum. Actinal surface slightly concave. Oral spines long and vitreous, the lateral ones being longer and thicker (Fig. 9e). Adambulacral figs with three or four spines (Fig. 9d).

Colour. From light brown to hey-coloured ( Sladen 1889).

Distribution.

The Bahamas, Florida, and Brazil ( Clark and Downey 1992). In Brazil: PE ( Tommasi 1970; Clark and Downey 1992). From 260 to 933 m in depth ( Clark and Downey 1992).

Remarks.

The genus Calyptraster presently contains five species ( Mah 2013), four of which occur in the Western Atlantic: Calyptraster coa , Calyptraster personatus (Perrier, 1885), Calyptraster tenuissimus Bernasconi, 1966 and Calyptraster vitreus Bernasconi, 1972. The first two have a similar geographical distribution, occurring from the Bahamas to Brazil and Colombia, respectively, while the last two are restricted to the coast of Argentina. According to Clark and Downey (1992), this genus is problematic, and the distinctions between Calyptraster coa and Calyptraster personatus remain to be better established. Walenkamp (1979) provides good descriptions and discusses the main morphological diferences between these species. In the phylogenetic analysis of the family Pterasteridae by Villier et al. (2004), it is concluded that Calyptraster representes a monophyletic genus. Calyptraster coa differs from Calyptraster personatus for having conical suboral spines, an osculum surrounded by valves with enlarged extremities, and for being distributed no deeper than 1000 m. Specimens observed in this study were all juveniles. Smaller specimens tend to have longer arms and a more flattened body. Our material was badly preserved in general, not permitting a detailed description of their morphological characters.

Ecological notes.

This species is quite rare, from deep waters, with little known of its biology and ecology. The species was collected in bottoms containing red mud ( Sladen 1889).