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The Echinoid Directory

Echinocorys Leske, 1778, p. 175

[ =Ananchitis Lamarck, 1801, p. 347 (non Ananchytis Mercati, 1717); = Ananchytes Lamarck, 1816, p. 23, type species Echinocorys ovatus Leske, 1778; = Echinocorytes Leske, 1778, p. 178 (obective); = Oolaster Laube, 1869, p. 451, type species Oolaster mattseensis Laube, 1869; = Galea Smith, 1817, p. 21 (objective)]

Diagnostic Features
  • Test ovate with flat base and domed upper surface; no anterior sulcus.
  • Apical disc relatively large; with four gonopores.
  • All ambulacra flush, with small circumflexed pore-pairs adapically.
  • Plastron meridosternous, with a single asymmetric sternal plate following the labrum. Subsequent plates biserial.
  • Periproct inframarginal to oral.
  • No enlarged primary tubercles aborally.
  • No fascioles.
Distribution
Upper Cretaceous (Turonian) to Palaeocene; Europe, North Africa, Central Asia, Australia, USA and the Caribbean.
Name gender feminine
Type
Echinocorys scutatus Leske, 1778, p. 177 (as synonym of pre-Linnean Echinocorys vulgaris Breynius, 1732), by subsequent designation of Lambert, 1898, p. 179.
Species Included
  • Many nominal species based on subtle differences in profile, few of which are worth distinguishing.
  • E. edhemi Boehm, 1927; Senonian, Turkey
  • E. texanus (Cragin, 1893); Campanian, USA
Classification and/or Status

Holasteroida, Meridosternata, Echinocorythidae.

Probably monophyletic.
Remarks

One of the best known Upper Cretaceous fossils of chalk deposits. An epifaunal deposit feeder. Closest to Pseudananchys Pomel, from which it differs in having small circumflexed pore-pairs aborally and an inframarginal periproct. Differs from Galeola only in having the periproct more adoral.

Smith, A. B. & Wright, C. W. 2003. British Cretaceous echinoids. Part 7, Atelostomata, 1. Holasteroida. Palaeontographical Society Monographs, London. Pp. 440-568, pls 139-182.