The Echinoid Directory

• Test ovate in outline with large, ovate peristomial opening. Test elongate along the axis passing through ocular plate II and genital plate 4.
• Apical disc dicyclic.
• Pore-pairs in arcs of 8-12 on each plate; expanding into broad phyllodes adorally.
• Aborally pore-pairs forming a double, rather irregular series.
• Ambulacral tubercles very massive; with only a single primary to each plate.
• Interambulacral plates aborally covered in large tubercles forming regular series; secondaries as large as the primaries. At ambitus primaries become prominent and dominate.
• Aboral spines short and angular forming a tesselated pavement. There is a downward-facing fringe of small paddle-like spines around the margin.

Recent, Indo-Pacific.

Echinus atratus Linnaeus, 1758, by original designation.

• P. atrata (Linnaeus, 1758); Recent, Indo-Pacific.
• P. pedifer (Blainville, 1825); Recent, Paumotu Islands.

Camarodonta; Echinoida; Echinometridae.

Monophyletic.

In Podophora aboral spines are flat-topped and fit together to form a tesselated outer protective surface whereas in Colobocentrotus the aboral spines are short and button-ike and not tesselated. In aspects of test morphology Colobocentrotus has mutiple aboral ambulacral tubercles while Podophora has single tubercles to each plate. Colobocentrotus also has more numerous aboral interambulacral tubercles that are not arranged into regular rows whereas in Podophora the tubercles are fewer and in obvious rows. Mortensen (1943) maintained the two at subgenus level.

Agassiz, L. 1840. Catalogus systematicus Ectyporum Echinodermatum fossilium Musei Neocomiensis, secundum ordinem zoologicum dispositus; adjectis synonymis recentioribus, nec non stratis et locis in quibus reperiuntur. Sequuntur characteres diagnostici generum novorum vel minus cognitorum, 20 pp. Oliv. Petitpierre, Neuchâtel.