Freyastera giardi (Koehler, 1907) comb. nov.

Fig. 8

Freyella giardi: Koehler 1907: 145; 1908: 242; Fisher 1940: 75; A. M. Clark 1962: 68; Korovchinsky and Galkin 1984: 1213 (in key); Mah 1998: 89; Mah in Clark and Mah 2001: 321; Moreau et al. 2015: 8; Moreau et al. 2018: 147; Zhang et al. 2019: 6 (in key).

Material examined.

NHMUK 1912.11.11.30 (syntype) (Fig. 8 A – E); MNHN -IE-2014-463 (syntype) (Fig. 8 F); MOM -INV-0021953 (syntype). (Suppl. material 1) .

Remarks.

Freyella giardi was first proposed by Koehler (1907) and described in detail later by the same author (Koehler 1908). As a six-armed species, Koehler (1908) remarked upon its affinity to F. sexradiata but did not compare it with F. tuberculata . According to the original description and examination of the syntypes, this species has inferomarginal plates and lateral spines generally corresponding to every adambulacral plate beyond genital area. Based on this character and many other characters that F. giardi shared with F. tuberculata as discussed above, we reassign this species as Freyastera giardi comb. nov.

Distribution.

Only known at type locality. Weddle Sea. 4572–4791 m.