The Echinoid Directory

Mauritanaster Lambert, 1920 p. 22

Diagnostic Features	Test ovate with shallow anterior sulcus; posterior face truncate. Test depressed in profile. Apical disc central. Structure uncertain due to poor preservation. Anterior ambulacrum weakly sunken aborally, moderately wide with small pore-pairs. Paired ambulacra petaloid; petals cruciform, parallel-sided, long (extending almost to ambitus), gently sunken and with little perradial zone. Anterior and posterior petals subequal in length. Plastron plating not known. Labral plate apparently long; extending to third ambulacral plate. Periproct on posterior truncate face. Lambert declared that there were no fascioles but preservation is not good enough to be certain and a peripetalous fasciole is present in Mauritanaster arnaudi. Aboral tuberculation heterogeneous, with scattered larger tubercles in all interambulacral zones.
Distribution	Morocco, Ypresian, Lower Eocene.
Name gender	masculine
Type	Mauritanaster gentili Lambert, 1920, p. 22 [=Macropneustes arnaudi Coquand, 1862], by original designation.
Species Included	M. arnaudi (Coquand, 1862); Ypresian, North Africa.
Classification and/or Status	Spatangoida, Micrasterina, unknown. Monotypic; possibly a subjective junior synonym of Heterolampas Cotteau,1862.
Remarks	Differs from the type species of Heterolampas only in having more depressed petals. Intermediate between Heterolampas and Macropneustes. The neotype of Macropneustes arnaudi Coquand differs in no significant way from the types of Mauritanaster gentili and the two species are here synonymised. Lambert, J. 1920. Sur quelques genres nouveaux d'Echinides Memoires de la Societe academique de l'Aube 84, 145-174. Lambert, J. 1931. Etude sur les echinides fossiles du Nord de l\'Afrique. Memoires de la Societe geologique de France 16(7).