Araeosoma leppienae Anderson, 2013, sp. nov.

• Main Author: Anderson, Owen F.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Taxonomy; Animalia; Echinodermata; Echinoidea; Echinothurioida; Echinothuriidae; Araeosoma; Christable Seamount; New Zealand; Auckland Islands
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/5622882; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5622882

Araeosoma leppienae sp. nov. Figures 3 I, 20–22 Holotype —From Christable seamount, west of the Auckland Islands, south of New Zealand: 51 ° 3.9´S, 164 ° 35.3´E, 968–973 m (118 mm TD), NIWA 23724. Deposited in the NIC, Wellington. Caught on 14 April 2003 by RV Tangaroa during research into the ecology of seamounts. Stored in 80 % ethanol. Paratypes —None. Etymology —Named after Bridget Leppien, used as a noun in the genitive case. Diagnosis —Test and spines brown, darker in poriferous zone and paler between columns creating a radial pattern of alternating light and dark stripes; large tridentate pedicellariae with broad, coarsely serrated valves; small tridentate pedicellariae narrow, valves not serrated; involute tridentate pedicellariae lacking; dactylous pedicellariae with six valves; primary tubercles on every plate in the oral adradial interambulacral series. Description —Test of holotype (Figure 20) moderate size (118 mm TD), circular, flattened, rounded at ambitus. Colour of test brown, darkest in the pore zones partly due to retention of colour in the tube-feet and their protection of the surrounding skin during capture, lighter in the interambulacra and interporiferous zones where test plates are more net-worn. This produces a pattern of radial stripes on both surfaces—a feature which may not be as apparent in the live animal. Primary spines all broken and mostly lost, therefore details of the hoofs unknown. Primary tubercles perforate and non-crenulate. Ratio of interambulacrum to ambulacrum width at the ambitus, 3: 2. Interambulacral columns have 35–36 plates, 15 on the oral side and 20–21 aborally; ambulacral columns have 51–57 plates, 20–23 orally and 31–34 aborally. Plate boundaries obscured by thick membranous connective tissue but wide gaps clearly evident between interambulacral plates on both surfaces. Tubercles less prominent at inner end of aboral plates due to partial covering by connective tissue, accentuating broad naked areas interradially and perradially. Areoles of primary spines large, ...