The Echinoid Directory

Contributed by Andrew Smith, August 2011

Pentechinus Philip & Foster, 1971, p. 678

Diagnostic Features	Small test size Apical disc dicyclic with raised ocular plates; surface of plates with nodular sculpture. In female distal portions of genital plates strongly introverted to form the proximal walls of a marsupium. Genital pores (5) large, located at the estremity of the genital plates within the marsupium Ambulacral zones only slightly narrower than interambulacral zones; poriferous tract narrow in weakly offset triads. Plate compounding echinoid and trigeminate; primary tubercle to each compound plate. Interambulacral plates relatively high and carrying a primary tubercle. Remainder of surface of plate ornamented with tear-drop shaped epistroma Peristome small, circular with feeble buccla notches Perignathic girdle of low styliform auricles not united above the ambulacra and high apophyses.
Distribution	Late Oligocene, Australia
Name gender	masculine
Type	Pentechinus mirabilis Philip & Foster, 1971, p. 678, by original diagnosis.
Species Included	Only the type species.
Classification and/or Status	Camarodonta, Temnopleuroida, Temnopleuridae Monotypic.
Remarks	Easily distinguished from other temnopleurids on account of its five highly characteristic brood pouches. Test morphology of males is currently unreported. Philip, G. M. & Foster, R. J. 1971. Marsupiate Tertiary echinoids from south-eastern Australia and their zoogeographical significance. Palaeontology 14, 666-695.