Patiriella obscura Dartnall, 1971

Dartnall, Alan J., Byrne, Maria, Collins, John & Hart, Michael W, 2003, A new viviparous species of asterinid (Echinodermata, Asteroidea, Asterinidae) and a new genus to accommodate the species of pantropical exiguoid sea stars, Zootaxa 359, pp. 1-14 : 10

Patiriella obscura Dartnall, 1971

Status: See C. pentagona (above). This species was placed in the synonymy of P. pseudoexigua by Rowe and Gates (1995) but those authors gave no reason for that decision. Comparative studies show that the original material of P. obscura sensu Dartnall, 1971 comprises a sample from a population of larger individuals than the specimens which were the basis for P. pseudoexigua (Dartnall, unpub.obs.). Their distinction was a product of limited sampling. This has caused problems for workers over the years since 1971 but data from studies by others ( Ottesen 1976, Gist 1993 and Lacey 2000) and more recent observations (Dartnall, unpub. obs.) have shown that the two "species" are two dimensions of a growth series and are conspecific. Whether " obscura " includes animals which are older (perhaps second year breeders) than " pseudoexigua " (current year breeders) warrants further investigation.