The Echinoid Directory

Contributed by Andrew Smith, March 2008

Circopeltaris Valette, 1907, p. 117

Diagnostic Features	Apical disc small, plating not preserved Ambulacra with pore-pairs arranged in more or less uniserially; plating 5-geminate aborally and subambitally; plate compounding echinoid, with largest element the lowest and with three demiplates. Interambulacral plates with 2-3 subequal tubercles on ambital plates but with a single primary tubercle adapically. Tubercles imperforate and non-crenulate.
Distribution	Middle Eocene, France.
Type	Circopeltis baicherei Cotteau, 1892, p. 510. Figured syntype: University of Lyon Palaeontological Collections EM 40569.
Classification and/or Status	Camarodonta, Echinometridae This genus has been treated as a subjective junior synonym of Circopeltis Pomel, 1883. However, the type species baicherei seems very different from the type species of Circopeltis, Leiosoma meridanense Cotteau, 1867 in having polygeminate plate compounding. It is here treated as a possible member of the Echinometridae.
Remarks	Cotteau, G. 1892. Paleontologie Francaise, Terrains Tertiares, Tome 2, Eocene Echinoidea. V. Masson, Paris. Valette, D. 1907. Revision des echinides fossiles de l\'Yonne. Part 1. Bulletin de la Societe des Sciences historiques et naturelles de l\'Yonne 60, 3-205