New record of the red prickly sea star Paulia horrida (Gray, 1840), Asterodiscididae, in the north of Chile

Enrique A. Mundaca,Renzo Pepe-Victoriano,Felipe Méndez-Abarca

doi:10.1186/s41200-021-00215-7

Enrique A. Mundaca, Renzo Pepe-Victoriano

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s41200-021-00215-7

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Abstract

We report the capture of a single specimen of the species Paulia horrida Gray, 1840, off the coast of Arica, in the Arica and Parinacota Region, Northern Chile. This finding extends the currently known distributional range of the species by 2,434 km towards the south, since the southernmost known area for this species corresponds to Punta Sal, Peru. We discuss the importance of finding this relatively unknown species in Chile and the need to continue sampling to confirm the continuous distributional range of the species between the south of Peru and the north of Chile.

Highlights

Echinodermata is a phylum of coelomate marine animals, mostly benthic and with a wide bathymetric distributional range (Caso 1961); (Harrison 1994), ranging from 0 to more than 1500 m as the case of, for instance, Antarctic echinoderms (Moles et al 2015)
Asterodiscides inhabits shallow to deep waters, and the genera Amphiaster and Pauliaoccur mainly in shallow coastal waters (Rowe 1985); (Oguro 1991)
Sex undetermined; radius length R = 65mm; Arica, Arica province, Region of Arica and Parinacota; January 2018; specimen collected alive at m deep on a rocky substrate, surrounded by a sandy bottom, offshore of the Alacran peninsula area (18.4802o S; 070.3319o W)

Summary

Introduction

Echinodermata is a phylum of coelomate marine animals, mostly benthic and with a wide bathymetric distributional range (Caso 1961); (Harrison 1994), ranging from 0 to more than 1500 m as the case of, for instance, Antarctic echinoderms (Moles et al 2015). The family Asterodiscididae comprises three genera: Amphiaster Verrill 1868, Asterodiscides A. M. Clark 1974 and Paulia Gray 1840. Asterodiscides inhabits shallow to deep waters, and the genera Amphiaster and Pauliaoccur mainly in shallow coastal waters (Rowe 1985); (Oguro 1991). Within this family,Paulia horridahas a wide geographic distributional range, occurring from the Baja California Peninsula, in Mexico, to the locality of Punta Sal, in Peru (Clark 1910); (Rowe 1977); (Hooker and Solís–Marín 2011) (Fig.).

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