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Astrodia abyssicola (Lyman, 1879)
At Mugiboshi Seamount, Kyushu-Palau Ridge, in the Philippine Sea, a single, five-armed serpentine starfish was discovered at great depth on an undetermined sea feather. Excursions to very great depths are conducted using ROV 's, which are capable of collecting specimens in addition to photography/filming.
The brittle star's body disk was pentagonal and nearly flat, 10 mm in diameter and 3.2 mm high; the five arms were long, slender, and about nine to ten times the disk diameter.
Arms gradually tapering towards the tip, mouth surface flat, covered by thin skin and without external ossicles.
Arm spines present only in ventral part of arm, inner arm spines longer than outer arm spines.
Color: Bright pinkish
Etymology: The species name "abyssicola" is derived from the Latin word "abyssos" meaning bottomless and "cola" meaning alive - in the depths.
Literature reference:
Xie X, Lu B, Pang J, Zhang D (2022)
Description of two species of the genus Astrodia Verrill, 1899 (Ophiuroidea, Euryalida, Asteronychidae), including a new species from seamounts in the West Pacific.
ZooKeys 1123: 99-122. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1123.87397
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Synonymised names;
Ophiocreas abyssicola Lyman, 1879 · unaccepted (transferred to Astrodia by...)
At Mugiboshi Seamount, Kyushu-Palau Ridge, in the Philippine Sea, a single, five-armed serpentine starfish was discovered at great depth on an undetermined sea feather. Excursions to very great depths are conducted using ROV 's, which are capable of collecting specimens in addition to photography/filming.
The brittle star's body disk was pentagonal and nearly flat, 10 mm in diameter and 3.2 mm high; the five arms were long, slender, and about nine to ten times the disk diameter.
Arms gradually tapering towards the tip, mouth surface flat, covered by thin skin and without external ossicles.
Arm spines present only in ventral part of arm, inner arm spines longer than outer arm spines.
Color: Bright pinkish
Etymology: The species name "abyssicola" is derived from the Latin word "abyssos" meaning bottomless and "cola" meaning alive - in the depths.
Literature reference:
Xie X, Lu B, Pang J, Zhang D (2022)
Description of two species of the genus Astrodia Verrill, 1899 (Ophiuroidea, Euryalida, Asteronychidae), including a new species from seamounts in the West Pacific.
ZooKeys 1123: 99-122. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1123.87397
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Synonymised names;
Ophiocreas abyssicola Lyman, 1879 · unaccepted (transferred to Astrodia by...)
