Astropecten aranciacus? ( Linnaeus, 1758 )

Madeira, Patrícia, Kroh, Andreas, Cordeiro, Ricardo, De, António M., Martins, Frias & Ávila, Sérgio P., 2019, The Echinoderm Fauna of the Azores (NE Atlantic Ocean), Zootaxa 4639 (1), pp. 1-231 : 73

Astropecten aranciacus? ( Linnaeus, 1758)

Reports for the Azores:

Astropecten aranciacus ( Linnaeus, 1758) —? $ Madsen 1950: 180–181.

Type locality: Mediterranean Sea.

See: Tortonese (1965: 137–140, figs. 60–61).

Occurrence: Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea; from Portugal south to Angola ( Tortonese 1965), including the archipelagos of the?Azores ( Madsen 1950), Madeira, Canaries ( D̂derlein 1917) and Cape Verde ( Entrambasaguas 2008).

Depth: 1–183 m ( Madsen 1950).

Habitat: soft sediments (biogenic detritus to sandy silt bottoms); also in Zostera and Posidonia prairies ( Koukouras et al. 2007).

Larval stage: planktotrophic (c. 60–80 days: Ĥrstadius 1938).

Remarks: the presence of Astropecten aranciacus in Azores is based on a single specimen reported by Madsen (1950) with no further collection data (?Copenhagen Museum). The presence of this species in the Azores would be expected considering the widespread distribution of this species in the north-eastern Atlantic, including most of the archipelagos ( Zulliger et al. 2009). However, the lack of any other animals from the islands of this well-known shallow-water species casts some doubt on Madsen’s report suggesting the possibility of a mislabelled specimen. The presence of A. aranciacus in the Azores should, therefore, be considered with caution until new material of this species is retrieved from the archipelago’s waters.