Astropecten irregularis pentacanthus ( Delle Chiaje, 1827 )

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 : 167

Erroneous— Astropecten irregularis pentacanthus ( Delle Chiaje, 1827)

Reports for the Azores:

non Astropecten pentacanthus ( Philippi, 1837) — Simroth 1888: 231 [misidentified A. hermatophilus ];

Astropecten irregularis pentacanthus ( Delle Chiaje, 1827) — Koehler 1914b: 273, 1924: 196–199 [based on Simroth 1888]; Madsen 1950: 169–170 [based on Ludwig 1897].

Type locality: Mediterranean Sea.

See: Tortonese (1965: 132–137).

Occurrence: Endemic to the Mediterranean Sea (A.M. Clark & Downey 1992); possibly also present in the East Atlantic (Gorringe Seamount and Madeira; Zulliger & Lessios 2010; Pérès 1964); other subspecies of are also known in the Atlantic from Scandinavia to South Africa (A.M. Clark & Downey 1992).

Depth: shallow water to 929 m, particularly abundant between 50 to 400 m ( Tortonese 1965).

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

Larval stage: planktotrophic (inferred from A. irregularis irregularis , see McEdward & Miner 2001).

Remarks: Simroth (1888) was responsible for the only record of Astropecten pentacanthus known from the Azores. Later, D̂derlein (1917) re-assigned Simroth material to A. hermatophilus , the only Astropecten species known to occur in the Azores with certainty (see remarks under Astropecten hermatophilus ).