Acanthaster ellisii pseudoplanci Caso, 1962

Haszprunar, Gerhard & Spies, Martin, 2014, An integrative approach to the taxonomy of the crown-of-thorns starfish species group (Asteroidea: Acanthaster): A review of names and comparison to recent molecular data, Zootaxa 3841 (2), pp. 271-284 : 275-276

(7) Acanthaster ellisii pseudoplanci Caso, 1962

Original source. Caso (1962): p. 322–330, text-figs. 3–4, pl. 3: figs. 1–29, pl. 5: figs. 3–9, 17.

Nomenclatural status. Available name.

Type material. 16 syntypes ( Caso 1962: 327); see remark (1) below.

Type localities. "al Sureste y Oeste de la bahía Rafael Castelán Orta y al Oeste de la bahía Vargas Lozano" ( Caso 1962: 327), Socorro Island , East Pacific off Mexico; see remark (2) below .

Remarks. (1) At least eleven syntypes have been preserved in the Colección Nacional de Equinodermos "Dra. Ma. E. Caso Muñoz" in Mexico City (F.A. Solís-Marín, pers. comm. 2014); collection codes: ICML-UNAM 2.73.0 (6 dry specimens), ICML-UNAM 2.73.1 (5 specimens in alcohol).

(2) Caso (1962) based her subspecies distinction on a detailed morphological comparison of the hard parts of specimens of " A. ellisii pseudoplanci " from an Universidad Nacional expedition (op. cit.: p. 327) with others she had received under the name " A. ellisii (Gray) " from F.C. Ziesenhenne of the Allan Hancock Foundation (p. 322) at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Parts of the latter material had been collected near the southern tip of Socorro Island. Although Caso reported the Socorro bays involved in both sample sets with different names, the latter appear to reflect nothing but contemporary U.S. (English) versus Mexican (Spanish) usage. In fact, some of the Socorro localities for Caso's (1962) " A. ellisii (Gray) " appear to be practically identical to the type localities of A. ellisii pseudoplanci , or at least so close that geographic separation of the respective populations is highly unlikely.