Ophiophrixus spinosus ( Storm, 1881 )

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 : 165

Erroneous— Ophiophrixus spinosus ( Storm, 1881)

Reports for the Azores:

Ophiophrixus spinosus ( Storm, 1881) — Paterson 1985: 21–22, fig. 12: 169.

Type locality: Norway .

See: Mortensen (1927a: 171–172, figs. 96–97); Paterson (1985).

Occurrence: Northeast Atlantic, from the Denmark Strait and off SE of Iceland to off NW African waters ( Koehler 1906b, Mortensen 1933a).

Depth: 40– 1,383 m ( Harvey et al. 1988).

Habitat: soft bottoms, sand, mud to ooze ( Farran 1913).

Larval stage: viviparous ( Kasyanov et al. 1998).

Remarks: Koehler (1906b) reported Ophiophrixus spinosus (as Ophiobyrsa hystricis ) from off the coast of Morocco ( Talisman , sta 20, 1883: 33°43’N, 9°01’46″W, 1,105 m), a species previously known from Icelandic and Scandinavian waters. Mortensen (1927a) referred to this record as between Madeira and NW Africa, which later changed to ‘off Madeira’ ( Mortensen 1933a). Paterson (1985) placed the southern limit of this species not in Morocco or Madeira, but in the Azores, which is clearly a mistake, that was repeated in subsequent literature.