The Echinoid Directory

Aurelianaster Lambert & Thiery, 1925, p. 589

[pro Leiocorys Lambert in Valette, 1913, p. 10 (non Liocorys Fieber, 1858); pro Valettaster Lambert & Thiery, 1920, p. 405 (non Lambert 1914; an asteroid)]

Diagnostic Features	Test weakly cordiform, with shallow anterior notch at ambitus. Base slightly convex; upper surface low domal. Test plating thin and fragile. Apical disc plating holasterid; four gonopores. Positioned slightly anterior of centre. Frontal groove only weakly developed towards ambitus and continuing adorally; absent adapically. Aboral pore-pairs small and undifferentiated; apetaloid. Plastron plating metasterous; uniserial for the first 5 plates. Periproct marginal on vertically truncate face. Peristome ovate and facing downwards. Major tubercles scattered over the aboral face, set in a groundmass of fine granules. No fascioles.
Distribution	Late Cretaceous (Middle Turonian), France.
Name gender	masculine
Type	Leiocorys valettei Lambert, in Valette, 1913, p. 11, by original designation. Syntype: Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, J01535.
Species Included	Lambert & Thiery (1920) identified two species; the type, from the Middle Turonian of France, and L. rugatus Lambert 1917, from the same horizon.
Classification and/or Status	Holasteroida, Cardiasteridae Monotypic; subjective junior synonym of Plesiocorys (Sternotaxis) Lambert, 1893.
Remarks	Differentiated from Sternotaxis only in having rudimentary ambulacral pores aborally. This difference hardly merits generic separation. Valette, A. 1913. Description de quelques Echinides nouveaux de la Craie (second supplement). Bulletin de la Societe des Sciences historiques et naturelles de l'Yonne 27, 3-48.