Ophiacantha simulans Koehler 1895

Ophiacantha simulans Koehler, 1895c Reports for the Azores:

non Ophiacantha composita Koehler, 1897 a— $ Koehler 1909: 185 [misidentification]; García-Diez et al. 2005: 49 [based on Koehler 1909];

Ophiacantha simulans Koehler, 1895 c—Gage et al. 1983: 291; Paterson 1985: 39–40, fig. 17; Martynov & Litvinova 2008: 96, fig. 11B; Smirnov et al. 2014: 196.

Type locality: Bay of Biscay.

See: Koehler (1895c: 465–467; fig. 7; 1896c: 82–84); Mortensen (1933a: 26–29, figs. 11, 12, pl. 3, figs. 5–6); Paterson (1985).

Occurrence: North Atlantic, from off North Carolina eastwards to Iceland in the North (Gage et al. 1983), southwards to off Morocco (Bartsch 1987) including the archipelagos of the Azores and Canaries (Koehler 1909).

Depth: 1,480–3,018 m (Mortensen 1933a); AZO: 1,919–3,018 m (Koehler 1909).

Habitat: soft substrates, mud to muddy sand and corals (Koehler 1909).

Remarks: Koehler (1906b, 1909) reported small animals collected by the Talisman, Travailleur and Princesse Alice in the Bay of Biscay, Canaries and the Azores, which he believed to be Ophiacantha composita, a species he described for the Indian Ocean. Mortensen (1933a) disagreed with Koehler stating that the NE Atlantic animals were O. simulans. Paterson (1985) re-examined the material from the Talisman and Travailleur collected in the Bay of Biscay and agreed with Mortensen, assigning Koehler’s Ophiacantha composita specimens from the Atlantic to O. simulans.