Ophionereis reticulata? ( Say, 1825 )

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 : 27

Ophionereis reticulata? ( Say, 1825)

Reports for the Azores:

Ophionereis reticulata L̹tken, 1859 — $ Koehler 1906b: 271, 1909: 181; Mortensen 1927a: 224; Pereira 1997: 332; Ophionereis reticulata ( Say, 1825) — García-Diez et al. 2005: 50.

Type locality: Florida Keys , USA .

See: Say (1825: 148, as Ophiura reticulata ); A.M. Clark (1953); Thomas (1973: 586–588, figs. 1, 5A).

Occurrence: tropical Western Atlantic, from North Carolina ( Pearse & Williams 1951) and Bermuda (A.M. Clark 1953), through the Caribbean coast to Brazil ( Thomas 1973); possibly reaching the archipelagos of? Cape Verde and?Azores.

Depth: 0–200(?560) m (A.M. Clark 1953);? AZO: 98–560 m ( Koehler 1909).

Habitat: sediment-rocky shore interface ( Yokoyama et al. 2011).

Larval stage: lecithotrophic ( Yokoyama et al. 2008).

Remarks: the tropical West Atlantic shallow-water species Ophionereis reticulata was reported from the Azores by Koehler (1906b, 1909). Unfortunately, he fails to give any kind of description aside from the small size of the specimens (<5 mm, whereas a normal adult reaches 13 mm; Hernández-Herrejon et al. 2008). The presence of this species in Azorean waters might represent an occasional vagrant, a case similar to Eucidaris tribuloides . In Brazil, O. reticulata spawns in the summer when the waters can reach average temperatures as high as 27°C. Yokoyama et al. (2008, 2011) concluded that the rise in water temperatures plays a major factor in the reproduction of this species. Thus, like tropical E. tribuloides , it is hard to believe that this tropical brittle star could sustain a viable population in the significantly cooler Azorean waters, particularly if we consider the depth at which the material was recorded by Talisman (sta 123, 1883: 38°23’N, 28°49’46”W, 560 m) and Princesse Alice (sta 882: 38°3’40”N, 28°34’45”W, 98 m). On the other hand, A.M. Clark (1953: 65) commented that ‘the chief trouble in differentiating the species of Ophionereis as with other genera, is to distinguish between the really characteristic features and those which are contingent upon the particular ontogenetic stage reached’. The only known material of O. reticulata in the east side of the Atlantic was all identified and reported by Koehler (1906b, 1909). In addition to the Azorean records, Koehler (1906b) also reported five specimens belonging to O. reticulata collected by Talisman in the Cape Verde waters, between 103 and 225 m depth. While the specimen from 560 m depth may in reality not be a member of the shallow-water genus Ophionereis , the remainder of Koehler’s material could prove to belong to the only Ophionereis species known from the East Atlantic, O. sexradia Mortensen, 1936 . This brittle star was first described from the Gulf of Guinea, and later reported from the Canaries (A.M. Clark 1953) and Madeira ( Jesus & Abreu 1998). Regardless, whether the reports for the Azores originated either by a misidentification or by an occasional vagrant, the presence of Ophionereis in the northern latitudes of the Azores should be dismissed as doubtful until new material is collected.