The Echinoid Directory

Peripneustes Cotteau, 1875, p. 38

Diagnostic Features	Test with moderately strong anterior sulcus; subconical in profile. Apical disc ethmolytic, with 4 gonopores. Anterior ambulacrum moderately broad and sunken; pore-pairs small, simple isopores. Paired ambulacra petaloid; sunken; extending most of the distance to the ambitus. Petals narrow, with narrow interporiferous zone. The anterior pair flexed a little towards the anterior. Anterior petals almost at 180 degrees. Periproct large, on short posterior face (not preserved). Peristome wider than long; kidney-shaped with weakly projecting labrum. Labral plate short and wide and in broad contact with both sternal plates. Plastron fully tuberculate; formed of sternal and episternal plates; ovate. Spines and tubercles within peripetalous fasciole larger and in rows, but tubercles not sunken. Bilobed subanal fasciole and narrow peripetalous faciole present. Peripetalous fasciole indented behind petals in lateral interambulacral zones.
Distribution	Late Oligocene or Early Miocene, Cuba and Antigua.
Name gender	feminine
Type	Peripneustes antillarum Cotteau, 1875, p. 39, by original designation. Holotyp: University of Lyon Palaeontological Collections EM 40848.
Species Included	Peripneustes antillarum Cotteau, 1875: late Oligocene, early Miocene, Cuba and Anguilla Peripneustes insignis Duncan & Sladen, 1883; Middle Eocene, India, Pakistan
Classification and/or Status	Spatangoida, Micrasterina, Brissidae. Monotypic; subjective junior synonym of Schizobrissus Pomel, 1869.
Remarks	Similar in plastron structure to Meoma but differs in having a broader and more sunken anterior ambulacrum. Chesher (1970) and Kier (1984) placed this genus in synonymy with Meoma rather than Schizobrissus, because the type species of Schizobrissus was then inadequately known. Chesher, R. H. 1970. Evolution in the genus Meoma (Echinoidea: Spatangoida) and a description of a new species from Panama. Bulletin of Marine Science 20, 731-761. Cotteau, G. 1875. Description des echinides tertiaries des iles de St Bartholeme et Anguilla. Kongl. Svenska Vetenskaps-Akad. Handlingar 13 Kier, P.M. 1984. Fossil spatangoid echinoids of Cuba. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 55, 1-336.