Western Spiny Brittle Star

In Panama this species has been collected from Venado Beach (USNM E 23688) and the reef of Old French Fort (USNM E 24130), Panama Bay; from the East Chamber of the Miraflores Locks (Panama canal) (USNM E 23622) and Saint Elmo Bay (USNM E 23516), Rey Island, Perlas Archipelago, Gulf of Panama, eastern Pacific.

Le Conte, J.L. (1851). Zoological Notes. Proceedings of the Society of Natural History Philadelphia, 5, 317-320.

Lyman, T. (1860). Descriptions of new Ophiuridae, belonging to the Smithsonian Institution and to the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 1859-61, 7, 252-262.

Maluf, L. Y. (1988). Composition and distribution of the central eastern Pacific echinoderms. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Technical Reports, 2, 1– 242.

World Ophiuroidea Database

LSID urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:244192

Ophiothrix dumosa Lyman, 1860
Ophiothrix spiculata Le Conte, 1851

Disk circular with interradial protruding (dd = 1.2 to 10.2 mm). Disk totally covered with short multifid spinules and spines. Radial shields nearly touching distally and separated by a row of scales and spinules (Fig. 2J).Ventral side of the disk sparsely covered by small spines and scales (Fig. 2K). Oral shields wider than long and diamond shaped with lateral sides lobate; madreporite evident. Adoral shields triangular, small and in contact. Oral papillae lacking. A dental papillae cluster at the ventral apex of the jaw (Fig. 2L). Dorsal arm plates pentagonal with rounded edges (Fig. 2H). Ventral arm plates wider than long, wider on the distal edge. Up to eight serrated and hyaline arm spines; top-most spine is usually short, second or third are the longest. One small tentacle scale (Fig. 2I). Color of the disk bluish-purple (Fig. 2G). Mouth area whitish-yellow (Fig. 2K, L).

Bering Sea, USA (California), Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Galapagos Islands (Clark HL 1911, 1915, Hooker et al. 2005, Neira and Cantera 2005, Alvarado et al. 2010). In Mexico, from the Gulf of California (Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa), on the Pacific side of Baja California and Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Islas Marías, Jalisco, Michoacán, Guerrero and Oaxaca (Solís-Marín et al. 2005, Honey-Escandón et al. 2008, Granja-Fernández and López-Pérez 2011). Depth intertidal to 2059 m (Maluf 1988). In this study, Ophiothrix (Ophiothrix) spiculata was collected on coral reefs from Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, Michoacán, Guerrero and Oaxaca, between 1.5 and 26 m depth.