Forcipulatida Perrier, 1844

Benavides-Serrato, Milena, O’Loughlin, P. Mark & Rowley, Chris, 2007, A new fissiparous micro-asteriid from southern Australia (Echinodermata: Asteroidea: Asteriidae), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 64, pp. 71-78 : 71

Forcipulatida Perrier, 1844

Remarks. In diagnosing the Forcipulatae, Perrier (1844) referred to the 2-valved pincer-like pedicellariae, frequent 4 rows of tube feet, normally reticulate skeleton, and at least part cover of spines that are rarely granular. Subsequently Fisher (1928) noted for the order Forcipulata : stellate form with 5 or more arms, frequently long and slender; crossed and/or straight pedicellariae; reticulate skeletal plates in definite longiseries with marginal and carinal series usually regular; ambulacral and adambulacral plates equal in number, short and crowded, compressing the double series of tube-feet into 2 zigzag, 4 or even 6 longiseries; mouth plates frequently inconspicuous, sunken in actinostome. Recently Liao and Clark (1995) followed Blake (1987), and diagnosed the order Forcipulatida as having “disc relatively small, often well- defined,and arms almost cylindrical,marginals not conspicuous, inferomarginals aligned ventrolaterally; abactinal skeleton usually reticulate but sometimes compact, at least a carinal longitudinal series more or less evident; ambulacral plates numerous, very short, often staggered, at least proximally, to bring the suckered tube feet into four longitudinal series; oral plates narrow; papulae also present on lower side; pedicellariae consisting of a basal piece and two valves, either straight or crossed, or both”. Our observations in this study found conspicuous marginal plates on some species, and did not always find papulae on the lower side. We question these recent diagnostic characters of the Forcipulatida .