Astropecten cingulatus Sladen, 1883

Cunha, Rosana, Martins, Luciana, Menegola, Carla & Souto, Camilla, 2021, Taxonomy of the sea stars (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) from Bahia State, including ontogenetic variation and an illustrated key to the Brazilian species, Zootaxa 4955 (1), pp. 1-78 : 14-15

Astropecten cingulatus Sladen, 1883

Astropecten cingulatus Sladen, 1883: 266–267 .

Astropecten cingulatus — Brito 1962: 3; 1968: 9; Clark & Downey 1992: 33, figs. 9d, 11e–g, pl. 6E, F; De Léo & Pires-Vanin 2006: 273; Ventura et al. 2007: 231; Xavier 2010: 75; Benavides-Serrato et al. 2011: 217; Sandino et al. 2017: S293; Lawrence & Cobb 2017; Lawrence et al. 2018a: 130, figs. 2–3, 6, 8–10, 12–14, 17; Lawrence et al. 2018b: figs. 1–2, 4a–b, 6, 9–10, 13a; Cobb et al. 2019: figs. 7, 15c, 16; 17c, f; Cunha et al. 2020: 50 .

Distribution. U.S.A. (NC, SC, FL), The The Bahamas, Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Guyana, French Guyana, Uruguay, Argentina ( Bernasconi 1941; Downey 1973; Walenkamp 1979; Clark & Downey 1992; Benavidez-Serrato et al. 2011; Sandino et al. 2017; Lawrence et al. 2018a; Mah 2020a). BRAZIL: Pernambuco, Bahia, Vitória-Trindade Seamount Chain, Martin Vaz Archipelago, Trindade Island, Rio de Janeiro, Vitória Island-SP, São Paulo, Santa Catarina ( Brito 1962, 1968; Tommasi 1970, 1985; Carrera-Rodríguez & Tommasi 1977; Tommasi & Aron 1987; Manso, 1989; Clark & Downey 1992; De Léo & Pires-Vanin 2006; Ventura et al. 2007; Alvarado et al. 2008; Xavier 2010; Cunha et al. 2020). Depth. 11 to 1350 m ( Lawrence et al. 2018a).

Biological notes. Lives on soft substrates, feeding on gastropods, bivalves, crustaceans and cirripeds ( Ventura et al. 2007), and exhibits an annual reproductive cycle ( Ventura et al. 1998). This species is classified as “Least Concern” by the Ministry of the Environment ( MMA 2018).

Holotype. NHM-UK 1890.5 .7.304 ( Lawrence et al. 2018a).

Type locality. Pernambuco, Brazil.

Remarks. To our knowledge, only the EQMN has specimens from Bahia and we were unable to obtain specimens for examination. Records from this region are scarce and often dubious. For example, the specimen of A. cingulatus depicted by Queiroz (2006, fig. 3) is most likely an A. marginatus , and the specimens depicted by Pelaes (2008, fig. 3b) is possibly a smaller specimen of A. brasiliensis brasiliensis because of the presence of superomarginal spines (but note that the quality of the image is poor). The specimen of A. cingulatus depicted by Gondim et al. (2014, fig. 5e–h) also have spines on the superomarginal plates (some of these have fallen but spine scar is visible) and represents another species. Lawrence et al. (2018a) found some specimens of A. cingulatus with small spinelets on the proximal superomarginal plates, but these were never prominent.

Ontogenetic variation in A. cingulatus have not been fully studied. Lawrence et al. (2018b) noted that specimens with R <30 mm have two inferomarginal spines, while larger specimens have three inferomarginal spines; and that the number of rows of ambulacral spines increases from 3–4 in specimens between R 28–42 mm, the specimen with R 48 mm from Brazil having four. The illustration of the holotype (R 28 mm) by Sladen (1889) shows one row of adambulacral spines, and two rows of subambulacral spines. We did not find additional differences between the description of the holotype ( Sladen 1883; R 28 mm) and of a specimen R 84 mm ( Clark & Downey 1992). For a thorough description of intraspecific variation within A. cingulatus , see Lawrence & Cobb (2017) and Lawrence et al. (2018a; b).