Neoferdina Livingstone 1931

Mah, Christopher L., 2017, Overview of the Ferdina - like Goniasteridae (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) including a new subfamily, three new genera and fourteen new species, Zootaxa 4271 (1), pp. 1-72 : 39-40

Neoferdina Livingstone 1931

Gray 1840: 282; 1866: 12; Perrier 1875: 447; Sladen 1889: 397; Fisher 1911: 241; H.L. Clark 1921: 37 [as Ferdina (part)] Müller & Troschel 1842: 34; Grube 1860: 9; Dujardin et Hupé 1862: 365; Lütken 1865: 163 (as Scytaster )

Livingstone 1931: 307; H.L. Clark 1946: 112; Clark & Rowe 1971: 64 (in key); Jangoux 1973: 776; Clark 1993: 344 (checklist); Rowe & Gates 1995: 89; Liao & Clark 1995: 119; H.E.S. Clark & McKnight 2001: 175. (as Neoferdina )

Type species. Ferdina cumingi Gray 1840

Diagnosis. Body strongly stellate (R/r=~2.0–5.7, mostly between 3.0–4.0 cm), body flattened (i.e. quadrate in cross-section) in most species but variably pentagonal in larger individuals), body surface almost completely covered by granular tegument, save for bald patches or spots on abactinal and marginal plates. Crystalline nodules absent from abactinal, marginal plates. Abactinal plates variably flat to strongly convex, forming distinctive bumpy surfaces in many species. These plates also present in transverse series across the arm in several but not all species. Marginal plates variably equal dimensions to elongate to elliptical in shape. Most superomarginals convex, variably weak to strong but all with distinct bald region. N. annae n. sp. with bare regions on penultimate superomarginals, but otherwise covered by granular tegument. Inferomarginals variably granule-covered or with bald patch present. Actinal intermediate regions small (with fewer than four full actinal series) with single furrow spine series, subambulacral accessories absent. Most species display a bright to striking color pattern with a wide range, generally with dark colored superomarginal plates and lighter colored disk plates.

Taxonomic comments. Neoferdina was designated by Livingstone (1931) to accommodate F. cumingi , F. glyptodisca , F. kuhlii , F. offreti , F. ocellata and F. cancellata within the, then paraphyletic, Ferdina Gray (1840) . Jangoux (1973) refined boundaries between species of Neoferdina , reporting on variation, synonymies and relationships and provided the first key to the genus. The two most recently described species of Neoferdina , N. japonica and N. longibrachia , were described from Japanese waters by Oguro and Miskai (1986) and Kogure and Fujita (2012), respectively.

A review of the depth occurrence in Neoferdina indicates a significant shift from the historical perception of Neoferdina as occurring primarily in shallow-water tropical habitats. Only three of the 11 established species (the problematic N. kuhli is omitted), N. cumingi , N. offreti and N. oni , show an upper occurrence at a depth shallower than 10 meters. The remaining species such as N. antigorum n. sp, N. insolita , N. japonica , etc. are present at intermediate depths, 20–100 m, but at least three species which occur as deep as 150 to 200 m.

Neoferdina cumingi , N. offreti and N. oni all share transverse rows of enlarged, convex abactinal arm plates, in addition to bald patches which occur in variable patterns on the disk and arm surface. The complete absence of convex abactinal plates supports another cluster, including N. insolita , N. longibrachia , and N. annae n.sp., however N. insolita and N. longibrachia are nearly identical and N. annae n.sp. lacks bare spots on nearly all marginal plates suggesting the possibility of placement outside Neoferdina . Intermediate between these two groups, are N. japonica , N. gigantea , N. antigorum and N. momo n.sp. which lack transverse plate series. The former three possess a low abundance of abactinal plates in irregular formation whereas N. momo n.sp. possesses many abundant convex abactinal plates in distinct series. Thus, abactinal plates and to a lesser extent, marginal plate accessories are useful for identification of lineages within Neoferdina and provide a starting point for comparisons with molecular phylogenetic studies.

The shallow-water Neoferdina species are widely occurring and display variable characters which complicate inter- and intraspecific boundaries. Although some monography is present for Neoferdina (e.g., Jangoux 1973), field guides (e.g. Coleman 2007; Humann and deLoach 2010) and especially crowd-sourced photography websites/ social media image streams (e.g., Flickr, Facebook) have begun to convey much more of the widespread variation within Neoferdina which has largely been pigeonholed into the two most familiar species known from field guides ( N. cumingi , N. offreti and to a lesser extent N. insolita ).

Variable forms have been observed for several species, including N. insolita and especially for N. cumingi and N. offreti which show some morphological overlap. Preliminary COI (molecular) data (G. Paulay, pers. comm.) suggest that cryptic species are likely present within N. cumingi . Molecular data (mitochondrial and COI) for other widely occurring tropical valvatacean species, such as Acanthaster planci ( Vogler et al, 2008, 2012, 2013) has also demonstrated cryptic lineages within wide-ranging, Indo-Pacific species. Thus, although a summary of morphological observations for Neoferdina and known data for these species are included, these should only be considered a starting point for understanding the phylogeny and taxonomy for these groups as more data is need to test the relationships for these species.

Included species: N. annae n. sp., N. antigorum n. sp., N. cumingi ( Gray, 1840) ; N. gigantea (Liao 1989) , N. glyptodisca ( Fisher 1913) ; N. insolita Livingstone 1936 ; N. japonica Oguro & Misaki, 1986 ; N. kuhli ( Müller & Troschel, 1842-but problematic), N. momo n. sp., 1842); N. longibrachia Kogure & Fujita 2012 , N. offreti ( Koehler, 1910) ; N. oni n.sp.