The Echinoid Directory

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Order Temnopleuroida Mortensen, 1942, p. 225

[ex Temnopleurina Mortensen, 1942, p. 225]

Diagnosis	Camarodont echinoids with: primary tubercles crenulate; plates usually sculpted to a greater or lesser extent.
Range	Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) to Recent, worldwide.
Remarks	Mortensen (1942, 1943) established this order to encompas camarodont taxa not included within his Echinina (=Echinoida).  However his formal definition of the group mentioned nothing that uniquely identified this as a clade.  Mortensen (1943) and subsequently Durham & Melville (1966) included three families: Glyphocyphidae Duncan, 1889, Temnopleuridae A. Agassiz, 1872, and Toxopneustidae Troschel, 1872.   No recent phylogenetic analysis of this group has been undertaken, but it seems likely that Glyphocyphidae are stem group Camarodonta and Toxopneustidae sister group to the families of Echinoida.  Here Temnopleuroida is restricted to the families Temnopleuridae, Trigonocidaridae, and Zeuglopleuridae.