Ophiactis nidarosiensis ? Mortensen 1920

Ophiactis nidarosiensis ? Mortensen, 1920 Reports for the Azores:

non Ophiactis hirta Lyman, 1879 —? $ Koehler 1909: 171 [misidentification].

Type locality: Trondhjemfjord, Norway.

See: Mortensen (1920: 60–63, fig. 5; 1933b: 346–347, fig. 58a).

Occurrence: recorded from the Scandinavia, Iceland, southern Africa, off Gough Island (Tristan da Cunha, S Atlantic) and?Azores (Mortensen 1920, 1933a, 1936).

Depth: 102–560 m (Mortensen 1933a, 1936); AZO:? 1,095 m (Koehler 1909).

Habitat: ?volcanic sand (AZO; Koehler 1909).

Larval stage: unknown; also reproduces asexually through fission (Mortensen 1920).

Remarks: Koehler (1909) described a small six-armed specimen collected by Princesse Alice in Azorean waters (sta 1344: 38°45’30”N, 28°7’45”W, 1,095 m) as distinct from the type material of Ophiactis hirta collected by Lyman (1879, H.M.S. Challenger) in the Pacific, but not enough to consider it a different species. H.L. Clark (1918) suggested this specimen might represent a juvenile stage of Ophiactis abyssicola, a cosmopolitan deep-water species. Mortensen (1920, 1927) believed this specimen was actually O. nidarosiensis. Unfortunately, the specimen collected by Princesse Alice was lost (Mortensen 1920), and until new material is retrieved, the presence of either species in the archipelago should be considered as doubtful.