Ophidiaster alexandri Verrill, 1915

Cunha, Rosana, Tavares, Marcos & Jr, Joel Braga De Mendonça, 2020, Asteroidea (Echinodermata) from shallow-waters of the remote oceanic archipelago Trindade and Martin Vaz, southeastern Atlantic, with taxonomic and zoogeographical notes, Zootaxa 4742 (1), pp. 31-56 : 41

Ophidiaster alexandri Verrill, 1915

Ophidiaster alexandri Verrill, 1915: 91 , pl. 13, figs. 3–3b, pl. 25, fig. 2 [type locality: off Georgia, viz. Clark & Downey, 1992]; Alvarado & Solis-Marin, 2013: 612.

Distribution. Georgia, Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, Windward Islands, Brazil (Vitória-Trindade Seamount Chain, Martin Vaz Archipelago, Rio Grande do Sul) ( Verrill, 1915; Clark, 1954; Tommasi, 1970; Carrera-Rodriguez & Tommasi, 1977; Clark & Downey, 1992; Ventura et al., 2006; Alvarado & Solis-Marin, 2013). Depth range: 52–585 m ( Alvarado & Solis-Marin, 2013).

Color in life. Brown with darker spots ( Tommasi, 1970).

Habitats. Coral sand, and shells ( Verrill, 1915) and sand bottom ( Carrera-Rodriguez & Tommasi, 1977).

Comments. Ventura et al. (2006) listed O. alexandri for Martin Vaz among the echinoderms amassed during the REVIZEE-Central Program (Evaluation of the Living Resources in the Brazilian Economic Exclusive Zone, sampling station C5-48R, 23°53’S– 45°26’W, 52 m. See also Lavrado, 2006). Surprisingly enough, O. alexandri was not integrated into the atlas of the fauna caught during the REVIZEE-Central Program. In Martin Vaz, that species occurred well beyond the depths of our typical SCUBA diving survey.