Ophiomyxidae Ljungman, 1867

Stöhr, Sabine, Hugall, Andrew F., Thuy, Ben & Martynov, Alexander, 2018, Morphological diagnoses of higher taxa in Ophiuroidea (Echinodermata) in support of a new classification, European Journal of Taxonomy 416, pp. 1-35 : 15-16

Family Ophiomyxidae Ljungman, 1867

Synonym

Ophiarachninae Matsumoto, 1915: 83 .

Type genus

Ophiomyxa Müller & Troschel, 1842 (type species: O. pentagona ( Lamarck, 1816)) .

Other genera

Neoplax Bell, 1884 , Ophiarachna Müller & Troschel, 1842 , Ophioconis Lütken, 1869 , Ophiostiba Matsumoto, 1915 , Ophiurochaeta Matsumoto, 1915 .

Diagnosis

Dorsal disc covered with granules or naked thickened skin, scales reduced in Ophiomyxa . Dental plate fragmented, sockets with flat borders, not penetrating. Ophiarachna with small ventral tooth cluster. Hyaline, large, flat, serrated teeth in Ophiomyxa and Ophioconis . Lateral arm plates reminiscent of an upside-down Y-shape. Arm spine articulation without sigmoidal fold. Arm spine articulations generally larger than in Ophiodermatidae and Ophiopezidae fam. nov. and in shallower notches or on same level as plate stereom ( Ophiomyxa ), of rounded shape with smooth stereom.

Remarks

Ophiomyxa has a specialized morphology with many reductions of the skeleton and is thus not typical for this family but the name has priority. Ophiocanopidae Mortensen, 1932 was synonymized with Ophiomyxidae by Stöhr et al. (2008) but Ophiocanops is now a member of Ophiacanthidae .