Enigmaster scalaris McKnight & H.E.S. Clark 1996 ...

• Main Author: Mah, Christopher L.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2011
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Echinodermata; Asteroidea; Valvatida; Goniasteridae; Enigmaster; Enigmaster scalaris; Antarc*; Antarctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6184342; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.6184342

Enigmaster scalaris McKnight & H.E.S. Clark, 1996 H.E.S. Clark & McKnight, 1996; 207; 2001: 45 Comments. It seems possible that characters listed by McKnight and Clark (1996) may be misinterpreted from dried tissue. The fibrous rungs or bars figured in descriptions of Enigmaster appear to be dried connective ligaments connecting the abactinal surface facets of paired ambulacral ossicles as observed in Ceramaster and other goniasterids. Similarly, the absence of suckers on the tube feet may be a misinterpretation of tube foot from dried tissue deformation. Furthermore, the perception of a suckerless tube foot could be a dried “simple disk” type tube foot as indicated by Santos et al. (2005) who described three different types of tube feet, only one of which actually possessed a well-developed sucker. The distinctive hastate arm shape observed in Enigmaster could represent unusual phenotypic variation, which is observed in other valvatidans, such as the South African goniasterids Toraster tuberculatus ... : Published as part of Mah, Christopher L., 2011, Taxonomy of high-latitude Goniasteridae (Subantarctic & Antarctic): one new genus, and three new species with an overview and key to taxa, pp. 1-48 in Zootaxa 2759 on pages 23-24, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.276783 ...