Publisher : Biodiversity Journal
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2014
Thematic : Species
Language : English
Note
In order to ascertain the extent of the natural intraspecific variability of living and fossil
echinoids belonging to the family Astriclypeidae Stefanini, 1912, morphometric and structural
aspects were examined in a number of specimens of extant Echinodiscus cf. auritus
Leske, 1778, from Madagascar and Philippines. The data obtained will be compared, in a
following work, with those of other echinoids belonging to the same family. The analysis of
the results indicates, for the sample studied, a great variability in the length of the posterior
ambulacral notches, in the petaloid length and in the position of the periproct respect to the
posterior margin, while the study of the complete scheme of the plates has clarified the stability
and constancy of some parts of this scheme and the variability of other. On the basis
of these observations, it has been claimed that the variability of these measures is not so
extensive as to affect or determine specific distinctions, if used without careful analysis of
the plating pattern in particular in the interambulacrum 5 and in the ambulacra I and II. The
results of these analyses, finally, suggests that these echinoids belong to a different genus,
than Echinodiscus Leske, 1778.
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Keywords :
Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
