The Echinoid Directory

Contributed by Andreas Kroh, August 2010

Araeolampas Serafy, 1974, p. 43

Diagnostic Features	Test large, ovate with shallow anterior sulcus; depressed in profile; base flattened. Apical disc ethmolytic, with 4 gonopores. Ambulacrum non-petaloid and flush with interambulacra. Pore-pairs rudimentary (single or double) and placed obliquely near perradial suture. Periproct on short vertical truncate face. Labral plate narrow and strongly elongated, Paired sternal plates with tuberculation confined to posterior part only. Aboral tuberculation mostly fine and uniform but with a few large primary tubercles sunken in camellae in columns 1b, 2a, 3b, 4a and adapically along the midline of interambulacrum 5. Primary tubercles crenulate, perforate and forming a slight internal ampullae. Peripetalous and subanal fasciole present. Tridentate, rostrate and triphyllous pedicellariae present. Spheridia not in pits.
Distribution	Recent; Circumtropical.
Name gender	feminine
Type	Homolampas fulva A. Agassiz, 1879. by original designation.
Species Included	A. atlantica Serafy, 1974; Recent, N-Atlantic. A. fulva (A. Agassiz, 1879); Recent, Central and Eastern Pacific. A. glauca (Wood-Mason & Alcock, 1891); Recent, Indian Ocean. A. hastata (A. Agassiz, 1898); Recent, Tropical Eastern Pacific. A. rostrata (de Meijere, 1903); Recent, Indonesia.
Classification and/or Status	Spatangoida, Micrasterina, Loveniidae or Maretiidae.
Remarks	Araeolampas differs from Homolampas by the presence of a peripetalous fasciole, crenulate primary tubercles, presence of enlarged tubercles in adapical interambulacrum 5, and four genital pores (usually 3 in Homolampas). Furthermore Araeolampas in contrast to Homolampas is reported to lack globiferous pedicellariae. Serafy, D. K. 1974. A new heart-urchin, Araeolampas atlantica, new genus, new species, from the North Atlantic and notes on the closely related Homolampas. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 87, 41-48.