Paralophaster Fisher 1940 ...

• Main Author: Mah, Christopher L.
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Echinodermata; Asteroidea; Valvatida; Solasteridae; Paralophaster; Antarctic; Antarc*; antarcticus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8092150; https://zenodo.org/record/8092150

Paralophaster versus Lophaster Mah & Foltz (2011b) included three Paralophaster species, P. antarcticus , P. godfroyi , and P. lorioli in their molecular phylogenetic overview of the Valvatida. Although these three species clustered together on both two-gene and three-gene trees, as part of a single lineage, Lophaster densus was also supported. This has resulted in further study of the diagnostic characters that separate Lophaster and Paralophaster. Lophaster has been historically characterized by the possession of distinct, more elongate, and larger marginal paxillae (i.e., marginal plates that are paxillae-like in shape), especially the superomarginal paxillae, which are clearly distinguished from the abactinal paxillae in Lophaster . This is contrasted with Paralophaster that was originally characterized by Fisher (1940: 175) as simply having “undifferentiated” superomarginals but has undergone redefinition to being similar in size or more precisely as being “…hardly if at all, larger than the ... : Published as part of Mah, Christopher L., 2023, New Genera, Species, and observations on the biology of Antarctic Valvatida (Asteroidea), pp. 1-88 in Zootaxa 5310 (1) on pages 56-57, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5310.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/8090240 ...