Acanthaster solaris ( Schreber, 1793 )

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 : 273-274

(3) Acanthaster solaris ( Schreber, 1793)

Original combination. Asterias solaris

Original source. Schreber (1793): p. 1–6, pls. I–II (1–2). www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/cgi-bin/neubutton.cgi?pfad=/diglib/aufkl/naturforscher/118931&seite=00000006.TIF (text) www.ub.uni-bielefeld.de/cgi-bin/navtif.cgi?pfad=/diglib/aufkl/naturforscher/118931&seite=00000183.TIF&scale=8 (plates)

Nomenclatural status. Available name.

Type material. Holotype —the single specimen reported on by Schmidel (1781) and Schreber (1793); see remarks (2) and (3) below.

Type locality. Unknown; see remark (2) below.

Remarks. (1) The figures in Schreber (1793: plates I and II) clearly show a species of the Acanthaster planci species group.

(2) According to Schmidel (1781: 7) and Schreber (1793: 1, 5), Schmidel had bought two different starfish at a shop in Paris the owner of which had reported the source of both specimens as “die Magellanische Meerenge” (the Magellanic strait). Madsen (1955: 180) and others have argued that the material cannot have come from the Strait of Magellan in Tierra del Fuego, as members of Acanthaster occur in tropical waters only, and the second of Schmidel's specimens belonged to Culcita schmideliana (Retzius, 1805) [= Asterias placenta Schreber, 1793: 6 , a junior primary homonym of A. placenta Pennant, 1777 ], which does not occur in South America. Therefore, the type locality of Acanthaster solaris (Schreber) has been assumed to be "one of the Philippine localities to which the name of Magellan is attached" ( Madsen 1955). However, we have not found evidence of any sea strait in the Philippines ever having been named after Magellan (though there is a widely known “Magellan´s Cross” on a shore of Cebu island). Accordingly, we do not follow such unsupported assumptions here, and find it reasonable to doubt the dealer's locality information quoted by Schmidel (1781).

(3) The holotype has not been found in the two natural-history collections known to have acquired substantial amounts of Schreber's material after his death, namely at the University Erlangen-Nürnberg (U. Andraschke, pers. comm. 2014), and at the Zoologische Staatssammlung in Munich (ZSM).

(4) Müller & Troschel (1842: 25) treated a species under the name " Echinaster solaris Nobis ", even though their synonymic listing referred to several earlier works that had used the same or a different species name, among them "Soland. et Ellis tab. 60–62" (i.e. Asterias echinites Ellis & Solander in Watt, 1786) and “ Asterias solaris . Naturforscher Stück 27, tab. 1. 2." (i.e. Asterias solaris Schreber, 1793 ). Later, Müller & Troschel (1844: 180) proposed a new genus to be called Echinites and to receive A. solaris as the only species mentioned, but both proposals are invalid; see section C(2) below.

(5) The species epithet was misspelled as “ solans ” by Ludwig & Hamann (1899: 711). This incorrect subsequent spelling does not constitute an available name (ICZN 1999: Art. 33.3).