Euryalidae, Gray, 1840

Nethupul, Hasitha, Stöhr, Sabine & Zhang, Haibin, 2022, New species, redescriptions and new records of deep-sea brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) from the South China Sea, an integrated morphological and molecular approach, European Journal of Taxonomy 810 (1), pp. 1-95 : 75

Families Euryalidae and Gorgonocephalidae

A total of 26 COI sequences trimmed to 608 bp were obtained after removing ambiguous aligned sites and successfully used in reconstructing an ML tree ( Fig. 44 ). Two main clades were detected, with the family Euryalidae belonging to Clade 01 and family Gorgonocephalidae belonging to Clade 02. The genus Asteroschema was detected as a sub-clade within family Euryalidae (Sub-Clade 01) and the genus Gorgonocephalus was detected as a sub-clade within family Gorgonocephalidae (Sub-Clade 02). Two inter-clades were detected among species of Asteroschema (Sub-Clade 01). Inter-Clade 1A consisted of A. bidwillae and A. tubiferum from New Zealand (depth 1126–1444 m). Inter-Clade 1B consisted of A. edmondsoni A.H. Clark, 1949 from New Caledonia and A. horridum from the South China Sea and Reunion Island (depth 498–1550 m). Two inter-clades were detected among species of Gorgonocephalus (Sub-Clade 02). Inter-Clade 2A consists of Astrodendrum sagaminum ( Döderlein, 1902) from Japan, Gorgonocephalus pustulatum (H. L. Clark, 1916) from New Zealand, G. sundanus Döderlein, 1927 from Australia and G. cf. dolichodactylus from the South China Sea (depth 400–1114 m). Inter-Clade 2B consists of G. arcticus Leach, 1819 from Cornwallis Island, G. eucnemis ( Müller & Troschel, 1842) from Japan, G. chilensis from the Antarctic, the Southern Ocean, New Zealand and the South China Sea (depth 398–1550 m) ( Fig. 44 ). Genetic distance values are provided in Suppl. file 3 and Suppl. file 4.

Figures

Fig. 44. Families Euryalidae Gray, 1840 and Gorgonocephalidae Ljungman, 1867, Maximum likelihood (ML) tree based on partial COI sequences (bootstrap support values were generated with rapid bootstrapping algorithm for 1000 replicates). Abbreviations: AN = Antarctica; IC = Inter-Clade; NZ = New Zealand; RI = Reunion Island; SC = Sub-Clade; SCS = South China Sea; SO = Sothern Ocean.