Ophiacantha Müller & Troschel, 1842

Numberger-Thuy, Lea D. & Thuy, Ben, 2020, A new bathyal ophiacanthid brittle star (Ophiuroidea: Ophiacanthidae) with Caribbean affinities from the Plio-Pleistocene of the Mediterranean, Zootaxa 4820 (1), pp. 19-30 : 21

Genus Ophiacantha Müller & Troschel, 1842

Remarks. Ophiacantha is one of the most species-rich ( Stöhr et al. 2012) and heterogeneous genera among the living ophiuroids ( O’Hara & Stöhr 2006; Thuy 2013). Latest molecular evidence confirmed earlier suspicions that the genus, as currently defined, represents a polyphyletic amalgam of species ( O’Hara et al. 2017, 2018) that should be subdivided into several genus-level clades. Previous studies already hinted at morphologically coherent species groups within Ophiacantha potentially representing such genus-level clades ( O’Hara & Stöhr 2006; Thuy 2013). A revision of Ophiacantha and allied genera combining molecular and morphological evidence by far exceeds the scope of the present paper. We therefore preliminarily assign the species described herein to Ophiacantha , emphasizing, however, that it belongs to a separate species group than the type species O. bidentata .