The Echinoid Directory

• Test ovate with shallow anterior sulcus; test flat-based with low domal upper surface.
• Apical disc ethmolytic; a little anterior of centre.
• Anterior ambulacrum almost flush adapically, becoming weakly depressed by the ambitus. Pore-pairs small and rudimentary.
• Petals long and parallel-sided, extending almost to ambitus; open distally; weakly depressed. Pores in each pore-pair not markedly elongate; perradial zone about equal in width to one pore-pair.
• Peristome kidney-shaped and depressed; facing forward. Shallow groove leading to anterior from peristome.
• Labrum projecting to cover peristome in oral view.
• Plastron plating with symmetical sternal plates.
• Periproct on posterior slightly undercut face; just visible in oral view.
• Test too abraided to tell anything about fascioles and tuberculation.

Eocene, Cuba.

Moronaster moronensis Sanchez Roig, 1952, p. 13; by original designation.

• Sanchez Roig (1952) included one other species, M. santanae (Sanchez-Roig, 1949) when erecting this genus.

Spatangoida, Paleopneustina, Paleopneustidae.

Monotypic?

Kier (1984, p. 144) reported that no specimens of either species could now be found in the Sanchez Roig collection. As both his species were based on badly worn specimens there is no way of knowing what fascioles were present, and the plastron plating is unreported. The specimens are close to Antillaster but that genus differs by having flush rather than shallowly sunken petals which expand towards the ambitus.

Sanchez Roig, M. 1952. Nuevos Generos y Especies de Equinoideos Fosiles Cubanos. Torreia 17, 1-18, pls 1-9.

Kier, P. M. 1984. Fossil spatangoid echinoids from Cuba. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 55, 1-336.