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The Echinoid Directory

Somaliaster Hawkins, 1935, p. 53

Diagnostic Features
  • Test ovate with small but distinct anterior sulcus; short truncate posterior face. Lower surface weakly convex, upper surface vaulted.
  • Apical disc ethmophract with four gonopores; genital plate 2 separating the posterior genital plates but not the posterior ocular plates. Positioned centrally.
  • Anterior ambulacrum weakly depressed from apex to peristome; pore-pairs miniscule.
  • Paired ambulacra petaloid; petals extending most of the way to the ambitus; weakly depressed with narrow interporal zone.
  • Peristome small and circular; close to anterior border and facing somewhat forward.
  • Labral plate small and longitudinally elongate; extending to fourth ambulacral plate; abutting sternal plate 5.b.2. Sternal plate 5.b.2 large and single; followed by smaller plate 5.a.2.
  • Anterior paired interambulacra amphiplacous, lateral paired interambulacra meridoplacous.
  • Periproct on short posterior truncate face; well below mid-height in posterior view.
  • Peripetalous fasciole passes around the base of the petals.
Distribution
Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian), Middle East, East Africa.
Name gender masculine
Type
Somaliaster magniventer Hawkins, 1920, p. 54, by original designation [= Iraniaster douvillei Cotteau & Gauthier, 1895, p. 30].
Species Included
  • Only the type species.
Classification and/or Status

Spatangoida, Hemiasterina, Somaliasteridae.

Paraphyletic, by exclusion of Brightonia, Leviechinus, Iraniaster.
Remarks

Kier gives a thorough and detailed description of this taxon and showed that Somaliaster magniventer is a junior synonym of Iraniaster douvillei Cotteau & Gauthier, 1895. It differs from all other somaliasterids in having the labral and first sternal plate in broad contact, which is primitive for the family.

Hawkins, H. L. 1935. Cretaceous Echinoidea. In The Mesozoic Palaeontology of British Somaliland. Published by the Government of the Somaliland Protectorate, 228 pp, 25 pls; Cardiff.

Kier, 1972. Tertiary and Mesozoic echinoids of Saudi Arabia. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 10, 242 pp. 

Cotteau, G. & Gauthier, V. 1895. Echinides fossiles. In Mission scientifique en Perse par J. de Morgan. III, Etudes geologiques II, Paleontologie. E. Leroux, Paris.