Freyastera Downey 1986

Mah, Christopher L., 2022, New Genera, Species and Occurrences of Deep-Sea Asteroidea (Valvatacea, Forcipulatacea, Echinodermata) collected from the North Pacific Ocean by the CAPSTONE Expedition, Zootaxa 5164 (1), pp. 1-75 : 15

Freyastera Downey 1986

Downey 1986: 36; Clark & Downey 1992: 479; Mah 1996: 273

Diagnosis. Arms consistently 6 in all known species. Abactinal arm plates imbricate. Proximal adambulacrals not united interradially. One pair gonads in each arm. Ambulacral and adambulacral plates elongate.

Comments. As outlined by Clark & Mah (2001), Freyastera and Freyella are paraphyletic genera. Downey (1986) only included Atlantic species in her introduction to Freyastera and did not survey the other potential species within Freyella which might belong to Freyastera . Zhang et al. (2019) described two new species of Freyastera from the northwest Pacific Ocean, provided a key to Freyastera species and presented a partial molecular phylogeny of the Brisingida . Their findings suggest that some 6-rayed freyellids which correspond to the definition of Freyastera may in fact be Freyella . The limits of the characters used to precisely characterize these two genera remains to be tested.