Salenocidaris hastigera ( Agassiz, 1879 )

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 : 103

Salenocidaris hastigera ( Agassiz, 1879)

Reports for the Azores:

Salenia hastigera Agassiz, 1879 — $ Koehler 1895a: 224, 1898: 9, 1921a: 3; Nobre 1938: 109–110;

p.p. Salenia hastigera Agassiz, 1879 — $ Koehler 1895b: 228, 1909: 219–220;

non Salenia profundi ( Duncan, 1877) — Mortensen 1927a: 289;

non Salenocidaris profundi ( Duncan, 1877) — Mortensen 1935: 354–357, pl. 85, figs. 1, 2, 29, 30, 35, 36, pl. 86, figs. 1, 2; Salenocidaris hastigera ( Agassiz 1879) — $ Sibuet 1972: 122–123; $ Mironov 2014: 122;

non Salenocidaris profundi profundi ( Duncan, 1877) — García-Diez et al. 2005: 50 [based on Mortensen 1927a].

Type locality: Pacific (Banda Sea).

See: Agassiz (1879: 198–199, as Salenia hastigera ).

Occurrence: cosmopolitan, in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans; in the Atlantic confirmed from the Azores and Atlantis Seamount ( Mironov 2014) .

Depth: 370– 2,605 m ( Mironov 2014); AZO : 793– 2,440 m ( Koehler 1909).

Remarks: historically, S. hastigera was confused with two closely resembling species, S. varispina Agassiz, 1869 and S. profundi ( Duncan, 1877) . Following Agassiz’s (1879, 1881) descriptions, Koehler (1895a, 1895b, 1898, 1909, 1921a) recorded this species from the Azores. Later, Mortensen (1927a, b, 1935, 1940b) considered all the records of this species in the Atlantic as misidentifications of S. profundi , retaining the name S. hastigera to the form from the Indo-Malayan region. Sibuet (1972) ignored Mortensen’s decision and place the identification of a small specimen collected by the bathyscaphe Archimède in the Azores (1,730 m depth) under the later species. More recently, Mironov (2006, 2014) confirmed the presence of this species in the Azorean waters, at a maximum depth of 2,440 m. The true geographical distribution and depth range in the Atlantic of S. hastigera is still pending on a future review ( Mironov 2006, 2014). Regardless, if all reports for the archipelago are returned back to the original determination of S. hastigera by Koehler (1895a, 1895b, 1898, 1909) it leaves no record of S. profundi in the archipelago. Additionally, Mortensen (1935) assumed that among the material of S. hastigera reported by Koehler there were specimens belonging to S. varispina , and the re-examination of a specimen from Princesse Alice collected within the Azorean waters (sta 578: 38°26’N, 26°30’45”W, 1,732 m) confirmed his suspicions (see below).