The Echinoid Directory

Dictyopleurus Duncan & Sladen, 1882, p. 38

Diagnostic Features	Test small hemispherical; flattened below. Apical disc about 30% test diameter; plates firmly bound to corona. Plating hemicyclic, with ocular plate I insert. Periproct opening large and circular. Ambulacra more or less straight; plating trigeminate throughout with pore-pairs uniserial. All elements extending to the perradial suture. Primary tubercle straddles two of every three elements, the lower being larger than the upper. No phyllodes. Small primary tubercle on each compound plate; positioned close to pore-pair and connected in a vertical series by a ridge. Sharp ridges also extend to the perradius from the tubercle. Interambulacral plates wide; with a small central primary tubercle the remainder of the plate with small granules arranged along narrow ridges in the type species. Primary tubercles crenulate with minute perforation. Well developed horizontal wedge-shaped pits surround the primary tubercles. Peristome small with only feeble buccal notches. Perignathic girdle, lantern and spines unknown.
Distribution	Latest Palaeocene-early Eocene, Pakistan.
Name gender	masculine
Type	Dictyopleurus ziczac Duncan & Sladen, 1882, p. 38 by subsqequent designation of Lambert & Thiery.
Species Included	D, ziczac Duncan & Sladen, 1882; latest Palaeocene-early Eocene, Pakistan.
Classification and/or Status	Euechinoidea, Camarodonta, Temnopleuroida,
Remarks	Other species Duncan & Sladen assigned to Dictyopleurus were later transferred to Ambipleurus by Lambert (1932) (e.g. D. darchiaci Duncan & Sladen, 1882 [includes D. haimei Duncan & Sladen, 1882]; latest Palaeocene-early Eocene, Pakistan). Duncan, P. M. & Sladen, W. P. 1882. The fossil Echinoidea from the Ranikot series of Nummulitic strata in western Sind. Palaeontologica Indica 14th Series1(3), 21-100, pls 5-20. Smith, A. B. & Jeffery, C. H. 2000. Maastrichtian and Palaeocene echinoids: a key to world faunas. Special Papers in Palaeontology 63, 1-404.