Amphiodia (Amphispina) microplax Burfield, 1924

Fatemi, Yaser & Stöhr, Sabine, 2019, Annotated species list of Ophiuroidea (Echinodermata) from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, with new records, Zootaxa 4711 (1), pp. 77-106 : 97

Amphiodia (Amphispina) microplax Burfield, 1924

Amphiodia microplax Burfield, 1924: 146 .

Amphiodia (Amphispina) microplax —A. M. Clark 1970: 25 .

Habitat: Clay and sand, 12–69 m ( Mortensen 1940).

Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman: Khoor Mousa (30), Strait of Hormuz (33) (ibid.).

Indian Ocean: Red Sea ( Clark & Rowe 1971), South Africa ( Clark 1974), Madagascar ( Cherbonnier & Guille 1978).

Remarks: Amphiodia (A.) microplax and A. (A.) obtecta are difficult to distinguish and may have been confused ( Mortensen 1940; Stöhr et al. 2010). They differ in the ventral disc, which lacks scales in A. obtecta but is fully scaled in A. microplax . Both have spiny processes distal to the radial shields and marginal dorsal disc scales with spiny extensions ( Stöhr et al. 2010), which places them in the subgenus Amphispina Nielsen, 1932 as defined by A. M. Clark (1970).