Ophiomyxidae Ljungman, 1867

Martynov, Alexander, 2010, Reassessment of the classification of the Ophiuroidea (Echinodermata), based on morphological characters. I. General character evaluation and delineation of the families Ophiomyxidae and Ophiacanthidae 2697, Zootaxa 2697, pp. 1-154 : 103

Family Ophiomyxidae Ljungman, 1867

Taxa of the family Ophiomyxidae that have been questioned for ophiacanthid affinity

Paterson (1985) mentioned a close similarity between the ophiotomin Ophiotoma alberti and the ophiomyxid Ophioscolex purpureus Düben & Koren, 1846 . The latter species has been treated together with few others as a separate subgenus Ophiolycus Mortensen, 1933 ( Mortensen, 1933b, 1936). McKnight (2003) elevated Ophiolycus to genus rank, but this decision remained largely undiscussed. Besides the presence of distal hooks, Ophiolycus has a number of differences from the type species of the genus Ophioscolex , O. glacialis Müller & Troschel, 1842 : reasonably defined dorsal arm plates (except at proximal segments), elongated welldeveloped radial shield, thin skin layer, numerous disk scales, and arm spine articulations of the double opening type with a lateral lobe. Therefore Ophiolycus is here also accepted as a separate genus. Stöhr & Segonzac (2005) have indicated that the ophiacanthid subfamily Ophiotominae and the genus Ophioscolex Müller & Troschel, 1842 of the family Ophiomyxidae is distinguished only by a few characters, but pending a revision they did not provide details. In order to compare and analyze these questioned taxa, diagnoses of both Ophioscolex and Ophiolycus are provided below.