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The Echinoid Directory

Family Mellitidae Stephanini, 1912, p. 749

Diagnosis

 Scutellidea with:

  • complex internal buttresses forming microcanal system around periphery;
  • ambulacral and interambulacral zones similar in width at ambitus; pores and tube-feet extending onto interambulacral zones;
  • petals well-developed, closed or nearly closed distally;
  • basicoronal circlet small, interambulacral elements pointed but not strongly projecting;
  • periproct opening oral, between peristome and anal lunule;
  • anal lunule present;
  • perradial notches or lunules in some or all ambulacra;
  • food grooves well-developed, bifurcating at edge of basicoronal circlet and finely subdivided distally.
Range
 Miocene to Recent; North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Remarks Stefanini, G. 1912. Osservazioni sulla distribuzione geografica, sulla origini e sulla filogenesi degli Scutellidae. Bolletino della Societe  Geologica Italiana, 30 (1911): 739-754. [often cited as 1911, but published on the 19th January 1912 according to the information on the last page of the paper]