The Echinoid Directory

Lepidechinus Hall, 1861, p. 18

Diagnostic Features	Test shape globular; plating imbricate. Apical disc small; monocyclic. Genital plates slightly larger than ocular plates and pierced by 1 or 2 gonopores each. Periproctal plates inside apical disc circlet. Ambulacra more or less straight and narrow; biserial throughout. Plating simple and uniform with pore-pair on each plate, positioned adradially. Single small tubercle perradially on each plate. Interambulacral zones wide; composed of up to 9 regular columns of hexagonal plates; imbricating adorally and laterally from centre. Basicoronal plate developed at oral end of each zone. Interambulacral plates with small secondary tubercles only. Peristome small, covered in ambulacral plates, with interambulacral plates ending before adoral opening. Lantern present; structure not known. Spines short and simple.
Distribution	Lower Carboniferous, USA, Europe.
Name gender	masculine
Type	Lepidechinus imbricatus Hall, 1861, p. 18, by original designation.
Species Included	L. imbricatus Hall, 1861; Burlington Limestone, Iowa, USA. L. iowensis Jackson, 1912; Burlington Limestone, Iowa, USA. L. cooperi Kier, 1965; Kinderhook, Iowa, USA. L. belgicus Jackson, 1929; Visean, Belgium. L. irregularis (Keeping, 1876); Asbian, Ireland. L. tesselatus Jackson, 1912; Burlington Limestone, Iowa, USA.
Classification and/or Status	Stem group Echinoidea; Lepidocentridae. Monotypic.
Remarks	Lepidechinus is close to Pholidechinus in structure, but differs from that taxon in having strictly uniserial pore-pairs, pore-pairs being biserially offset in Pholidechinus. Interambulacral plates are more regularly organised and a little thicker than in Palaeodiscus, and much fewer than in Myriastiches. Hall, J. 1861. Description of new species of Crinoidea from investigations of the Iowa Geological Survey. Preliminary notice. Albany, New York, C. van Benthuysen, 18 pp. Jackson, R. T. 1912. Phylogeny of the Echini, with a revision of Palaeozoic species Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History 7, 491 pp. 76 pls. Jackson, R. T. 1929. Palaeozoic Echini of Belgium. Memoires du Musee Royal d\'Histoire Naturelle de Belgique 38, 1-96. Kier, P. M. 1965. Evolutionary trends in Paleozoic echinoids. Journal of Paleontology 39, 436-465, pls 55-60.