The Echinoid Directory

• Test ovate without anterior sulcus; depressed in profile.
• Apical disc ethmolytic with four gonopores.
• Anterior ambulacrum narrow and flush; pore-pairs simple and undifferentiated; plates taller than wide.
• Paired ambulacra petaloid aborally; flush (with pore-zones slightly depressed); petals long and parallel-sided; open distally. Anterior petals flexed slightly towards anterior.
• Peristome large and D-shaped; slightly depressed with overhanging labrum.
• Labral plate short and wide; sternal plates large and bowed; episternal plates forming integral part of plastron and not much tapered posteriorly.
• Periproct large; occupying most of posterior face.
• Subanal fasciole present; large and bilobed.
• Peripetalous fasciole narrow; not indented behind anterior petals.
• Aboral tuberculation strongly heterogeneous, but no primary tubercles differentiated aborally (all aboral tubercles generally rather coarse).

Upper Eocene, Macedonia, Miocene and Pliocene, Mediterranean (North Africa, Malta).

Trachypatagus oranensis, Pomel, 1869, p. xi [=Brissus tuberculatus Wright, 1864, p. 486] by original designation.

• Lambert & Thiery (1921) list 5 species in addition to the type. Trachypatagus oranensis, Pomel, 1869, from the Upper Miocene of North Africa appears to be synonymous with Wright's species, and was synonymized with T. peroni Cotteau by Lachkham & Roman (1995). T. lamberti Checchia Rispoli 1920, from the Upper Miocene of Sardinia is also synonymous.
• T. depressus Peron & Gauthier, 1888; Burdigalian, Lower Miocene, Algeria.
• T. hantkeni (Pavay, 1874); Priabonian, Late Eocene, Macedonia, Italy and Hungary.
• ?T. jacksoni Lambert & Sanchez Roig, 1924; Miocene, Cuba.

Spatangoida, Micrasterina, Macropneustidae.

Monophyletic?

Differs from Brissus in having all five ambulacra flush rather than in shallow furrows and in having a stout labral plate that extends to the second or third ambulacral plate. Differs from Eupatagus in having narrow parallel petals and by having episternal plates that do not narrow markedly towards the posterior.

Bulle & Roman (1973) give an extensive description of an Upper Eocene species, T. hantkeni

Bulle, J. & Roman, J. 1973. Decouverte de Trachypatagus hantkeni (Echinide Spatangoide) dans le Paleogene de la Macedonine Yougoslave. Annales Scientifiques de l'Universite de Besancon. Geologie 3 serie 18, 105-113.

Valdinucci, A. 1973. Su Trachypatagus lamberti (Checchia Rispoli) e considerazioni sulle altre specie del genere. Bollettino del Servizio Geologico d'Italia 94, 443-452.