Evoplosoma timorensis Aziz & Jangoux 1985a

Mah, Christopher L., 2023, New Goniasteridae and in situ observations significant to deep-sea coral predation, Memoirs of Museum Victoria 83, pp. 1-35 : 21-24

Evoplosoma timorensis Aziz & Jangoux 1985a

Figure 10a–f

Aziz & Jangoux, 1985a: 263, Clark, 1993: 253; Mah, 2015b: 7.

Diagnosis. Body shape strongly stellate (R/r=3.5–4.0), arms elongate, interradial arcs rounded. Abactinal, marginal and actinal plate surfaces covered by thickened dermis invested with granules. Abactinal surface bearing spines, large, variably blunt tipped to conical. Superomarginal plates mostly with one or two conical spines, inferomarginals with four or five shorter, variable spines; all spines with rough tips in addition to smaller secondary spines. Actinal surface covered by granule-invested dermis, 1–3 thorny spinelets. Furrow spines, 5–8, in angular arrangement, blunt tipped. quadrate in cross-section.

Comments. The specimen figured here and the specimen from the Solomons differ from the Wallis and Futuna specimen (latter two specimens from Mah, 2015b) in displaying a much more flattened radial disk region. Observations of in situ Evoplosoma specimens (Mah, pers. obs.) suggest that when alive, the disk is strongly arched or expanded, perhaps with seawater, during feeding. This more curved or arch body wall is explained as likely variation resulting from this behaviour. Abactinal spines on NMV F307986 appears much less abundant than on the Wallis and Futuna specimen and more similar to the specimen from the Solomons. NMV F307986, at R= 9.5 cm, shows fewer and much smaller and narrower actinal spines than Aziz & Jangoux’s (1985a) holotype specimen, which has numerous, thickened and much larger actinal spines at R=9.0 cm.

Occurrence . Outside Australia. Solomon Islands, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Tahiti/Tuamoto, Papua New Guinea, East Timor Region and Celebes Sea, Indonesia. 795–1279 m.

Australian Range Extension. Cocos Keeling Islands , 932–965 m.

Material examined. NMV F307986 Muirfield Seamount , Indian Ocean Territories, Cocos (Keeling) Islands. 13.242° S, 96.2919° E, 932– 965 m. Coll . T. O’Hara et al. IN 2022 V 08 IOT 2, 21 Oct 2022. 1 wet spec , R=9.5, r=2.7.