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The Echinoid Directory

Family Disasteridae Gras, 1848, p. 65

Diagnosis	Stem group atelostomates with: disjunct apical disc, the posterior oculars separated from the remainder of the disc by plates of interambulacra 1 and 4 meeting along the aboral midline ocular plates II and IV small and widely separated by genital plates; disc compact posterior oculars bordering the adapical part of the periproct; the two posterior ambulacral zones curving away from the apex of the periproct.
Range	Middle Jurassic (Callovian) to Lower Cretaceous (Hauterivian); Europe, North Africa.
Remarks	Gras (1848) proposed this name for two genera, Disaster and Metaporinus, both of which have split apical discs. Lambert (1909, p. 15) restricted its usage to forms with ocular plates II and IV external to the genital plates and not in contact medially. This was also the interpretation employed by Wagner & Durham (1966). The only genus with this character is Disaster itself. Gras, A. 1848. Description des oursins fossiles du departement de l'Isere. Paris, 98 pp. Lambert, J. 1909. Sur un echinide nouveau du Massif du Pelvoux. Traveaux du Laboratoire geologique, Faculte des Sciences, Universite Grenoble, 9(1), 284-292. Wagner, C. D. & Durham, J. W. 1966. Holasteroids. in R. C. Moore (ed.) Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology Part U. Echinodermata 3. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press, Boulder.

Diagnosis

Stem group atelostomates with:

disjunct apical disc, the posterior oculars separated from the remainder of the disc by plates of interambulacra 1 and 4 meeting along the aboral midline
ocular plates II and IV small and widely separated by genital plates; disc compact
posterior oculars bordering the adapical part of the periproct; the two posterior ambulacral zones curving away from the apex of the periproct.

Range

Middle Jurassic (Callovian) to Lower Cretaceous (Hauterivian); Europe, North Africa.

Remarks

Gras (1848) proposed this name for two genera, Disaster and Metaporinus, both of which have split apical discs. Lambert (1909, p. 15) restricted its usage to forms with ocular plates II and IV external to the genital plates and not in contact medially. This was also the interpretation employed by Wagner & Durham (1966). The only genus with this character is Disaster itself.

Gras, A. 1848. Description des oursins fossiles du departement de l'Isere. Paris, 98 pp.

Lambert, J. 1909. Sur un echinide nouveau du Massif du Pelvoux. Traveaux du Laboratoire geologique, Faculte des Sciences, Universite Grenoble, 9(1), 284-292.

Wagner, C. D. & Durham, J. W. 1966. Holasteroids. in R. C. Moore (ed.) Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology Part U. Echinodermata 3. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press, Boulder.

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