Lophaster Verrill, 1878

Mah, Christopher L. & Fujita, Toshihiko, 2020, New species and occurrence records of Japanese Solasteridae and Ganeriidae including a new species of Paralophaster from the North Pacific with an overview of Hyalinothrix, Zootaxa 4750 (1), pp. 67-100 : 70-71

Lophaster Verrill, 1878

Lophaster Verrill, 1878: 214 ; Sladen 1889: 458; Ludwig 1900: 467; Fisher 1911: 334; Koehler 1920: 143; Djakonov 1950: 63; H. E. S. Clark 1963: 61; Bernasconi 1964: 258; Clark & Downey 1992: 299; McKnight 2006: 9.

Sarkaster Ludwig, 1905: 185 .

Comments. With the description herein, Lophaster includes eleven species occurring worldwide in cold to temperate settings. The description of Lophaster cactorum n. sp. brings the total number of Pacific species up to four, including L. asiaticus , L. furcilliger , and L. suluensis . Another four species, L. densus , L. gaini , L. stellans , and L. tennis , are recorded from Antarctic and high-latitude waters. Lophaster furcifer is recorded from the Arctic and North Atlantic, Lophaster verrilli from Puerto Rico and Lophaster quadrispinus is recorded from South Africa,

Japanese solasterids were reviewed by Hayashi (1939) with the first Lophaster record documented by Hayashi (1973) who reported L. asiaticus from Sagami Bay with subsequent records of L. furcilliger in Japan by Oguro in Imaoka et al. (1990) and in Korea by Lee & Shin (2009). Although they have yet to be documented, it seems likely that the other two species, L. asiaticus and L. furcilliger will be reported from nearby localities as further areas have been sampled.

Lophaster spp. generally show diagnostic features largely tied to specific numbers of abactinal spinelets, furrow spines and other variable characters. Several species within Lophaster , such as L. furcilliger and L. furcifer show relatively few morphological differences suggesting to some (e.g., Grieg 1932; Mortensen 1932) that they represent a single, widely occurring species.

Molecular data has shown both extremes, including multiple forms as part of a widely occurring species, such as Hippasteria phrygiana ( Foltz et al., 2013) and cryptic species, showing similarity but differentiated by very few morphological characters, as seen in the Asterinidae (e.g., O’Loughlin & Waters 2004).