Astropecten brasiliensis Müller & Troschel, 1842

Cunha, Rosana, Tavares, Marcos & Jr, Joel Braga De Mendonça, 2020, Asteroidea (Echinodermata) from shallow-waters of the remote oceanic archipelago Trindade and Martin Vaz, southeastern Atlantic, with taxonomic and zoogeographical notes, Zootaxa 4742 (1), pp. 31-56 : 49

Astropecten brasiliensis Müller & Troschel, 1842

Astropecten brasiliensis Mu ̈ller & Troschel, 1842: 68 [type locality: São Sebastião Island, São Paulo, Brazil, viz. Clark & Downey, 1992]; Fernandes et al. 2002: 422; Netto, 2006: 25–26, pl. 2a, fig. 16a; Ventura et al. 2007: 230; Machado et al. 2008: 350; Lima & Fernandes, 2009: 58; Xavier, 2010: 75; Miranda et al. 2012: 143, 144; Gondim et al. 2014: 19 .

Distribution. Caribbean Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil (Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Fernando de Noronha, Alagoas, Bahia, Trindade Island, Rio de Janeiro, Ubatuba, São Sebastião, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul), Uruguay and Argentina ( Rathbun, 1879; Sladen, 1889; Verrill 1915; Tommasi, 1958, 1970; Brito, 1960, 1962, 1968; Lima- Verde, 1969; Walenkamp, 1976; Carrera-Rodriguez & Tommasi, 1977; Walenkamp, 1979; Clark & Downey, 1992; Fernandes et al., 2002; Netto et al., 2005; Ventura et al. 2007; Miranda et al., 2012; Alvarado & Solis-Marin, 2013; Gondim et al., 2014). Eastern Pacific: Peru ( Alvarado & Solis-Marin, 2013). Depth range: 2–66 m ( Alvarado & Solis-Marin, 2013).

Color in life. In situ abactinal region violet and marginals pink; actinal salmon. Fixed: light pink or whitish ( Bernasconi, 1957a; Gondim et al. 2014).

Habitats. Soft bottoms, including sand-mud ( Brogger et al. 2013).

Comments. Oliveira (1951) referred to a juvenile specimen of “ Astropecten sp.” from the Trindade Island, whose record was repeated by Brito (1962) in a preliminary catalog of the echinoderms of Brazil (as Astropecten armatus brasiliensis ). However, this species was not included in the compilation prepared by Brito (1971) of the echinoderm species known at that time from Trindade, and we know of no subsequent records of A. brasiliensis from Trindade nor has it been collected by us there.

A note on the topotypes of Astropecten brasiliensis

Astropecten brasiliensis was described based on the material collected in “ Brasilien ” [ Brazil] by the Austrian naturalist and explorer Johann Natterer (1787–1843) (Müller & Troschel, 1842). Natterer extensively traveled in Brazil from 1817 throughout 1835, collecting natural history specimens for the Imperial Cabinet of Natural History in Vienna. Between the years 1817 and 1821, he made a number of field trips to a coastline strip comprised between Rio de Janeiro and Paraná, from where he probably obtained the specimens described later under the name A. brasiliensis . In 1848, a great fire destroyed the Imperial Cabinet along with parts of Natterer‘s collections from Brazil ( Papavero, 1971). Clark & Downey (1992) considered the type of A. brasiliensis lost, and selected the neotype E 529 from the USNM collection. The neotype was collected along with three specimens in the São Sebastião Island, São Paulo, in December 1915, by Ernest Garbe (a professional collector working at that time for the MZUSP) and donated to the USNM. Three topotypes remain at the Museum of Zoology in São Paulo (MZUSP 2096).