Leptochiton Gray, 1847

Sigwart, Julia D. & Sirenko, Boris I., 2015, A new name for the deep-sea chiton Leptochiton clarki Sigwart & Sirenko non Berry (Lepidopleurida: Leptochitonidae), Zootaxa 3986 (2), pp. 249-250 : 249

Leptochiton Gray, 1847

Leptochiton rogeri nom. nov. pro Leptochiton clarki Sigwart & Sirenko non Berry

Leptochiton clarki Sigwart & Sirenko, 2012: 22 –23, figures 4F, 15, 16, table 2, table 3. [Recent, Solomon Islands, 399– 700 m.]

non Leptochiton clarki Berry, 1922: 427 –430, figures 1–4, 10; Squires and Goeddert 1995: 51; Dell’Angelo et al 2011: 939. [Pleistocene, Monterey, California.]

Type material. Holotype ( MNHN 23701) disarticulated, consisting of mounts of shell, perinotum and radula, 5 paratypes ( MNHN 23702) and 1 paratype ( ZISP).

Distribution. Off Solomon Islands, 305 m and 708–1135 m. Found living and feeding on sunken terrestrial plant remains.

Etymology. The species is named after Roger Clark of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, USA, who is a specialist on eastern Pacific chitons.

Remarks. As previously outlined by Sigwart & Sirenko (2012), this species is a small chiton with white valves, similar in appearance to several other species inhabiting tropical Pacific sunken wood communities. The distinctive features of this species are the valves with distinctive granules (51 µm) forming widely separated radiating rows, with four micraesthetes in each aesthete group. Leptochiton rogeri has distinctive intersegmental bristles (450 µm) and long marginal fringe. There are four gills per side. Leptochiton clarki Berry, 1922 is known only from the Pleistocene of California (type locality, Upper San Pedro Pleistocene of Long Wharf Canyon, Santa Monica, California), and there is no evidence of any association with sunken wood.