Amphiura (Amphiura) grandisquama Lyman 1869
- Dataset
- The Echinoderm Fauna of the Azores (NE Atlantic Ocean)
- Rank
- SPECIES
Classification
- kingdom
- Animalia
- phylum
- Echinodermata
- class
- Ophiuroidea
- order
- Ophiurida
- family
- Amphiuridae
- genus
- Amphiura
- species
- Amphiura grandisquama
materials_examined
Reports for the Azores:
materials_examined
Type locality: off Tennessee Reef (Florida Strait). See: Lyman (1869: 334 – 337); Madsen (1970); Paterson (1985). Occurrence: cosmopolitan, in the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Oceans and in the? Mediterranean Sea; in the west Atlantic from South Carolina to the Caribbean (Koehler 1914 a), including Tristan da Cunha (Mortensen 1936); in the east Atlantic from Iceland to the Gulf of Guinea (Mortensen 1936), including the Azores (Koehler 1909), Madeira (Jesus & Abreu 1998), Canaries, Cape Verde (Koehler 1906 b), Saint Helena (Mortensen 1933 c), Meteor and Josephine seamounts (Bartsch 2008). The subspecies A. grandisquama natalensis Mortensen 1933 b is restricted to southern Africa (Alva & Vadon 1989). Depth: (? 2) 18 – 2,870 m (Mortensen 1936, Cherbonnier & Sibuet 1972); AZO: 599 – 880 m (Koehler 1909). Habitat: soft to hard substrates (Koehler 1909). Larval stage: brooder (embryos are kept in the bursae until the juvenile stage is reached; Bartsch 2008). Remarks: Koehler (1896 a, 1898) described Amphiura longispina based on a single specimen collected by Hirondelle in the Azores (sta 242: 38 ° 48 ’ 30 ” N, 27 ° 58 ’ 46 ” W, 861 m). On the re-examination of A. grandisquama from the Caribbean, Koehler (1907 b) confirmed both are conspecific. Additionally, the species Monamphiura apicula from the Mediterranean Sea (Tortonese 1965; Koukouras et al. 2007) has been considered conspecific with A. grandisquama by some authors (e. g., Madsen 1970; Paterson 1985; Bartsch 2008). If this is the case, the distribution range of the latter should be extended to the Mediterranean Sea and to depths as shallow as 2 m (Koukouras et al. 2007).