Popular search terms:

Home / Our science / Data / Echinoid Directory

The Echinoid Directory

Family Glyphocyphidae Duncan, 1889, p. 96

Diagnosis Stem group Camarodonta with:
  • apical disc relatively large; monocyclic (one ocular insert in one taxon); plates rather firmly bound to the corona. Periproct large with smooth ovate outline;
  • ambulacral plating glyphocyphid in style usually trigeminate, with lowest element the largest and all elements reaching the perradius. Sometimes with additional simple elements intercalated;
  • primary tubercles perforate and crenulate; those of ambulacral and interambulacral zones similar in size;
  • Peristome with small but distinct buccal notches.
Range Lower Cretaceous - Eocene, Europe, Middle East, North Africa.
Remarks Differing from Emiratiidae in having a smooth periproctal opening, not an angular opening, and its compound ambulacral plates have the lowest of the three elements the largest, as in echinid-style plate compounding. Temnopleuridae differ in having a hemicyclic or dicyclic apical disc and imperforate tubercles.