Eucidaris tribuloides ? (Lamarck 1816

Eucidaris tribuloides ? (Lamarck, 1816) Reports for the Azores:

Cidaris tribuloides Lamarck, 1816 — $ Koehler 1895a: 224, 1898: 8–10; Pereira 1997: 333; García-Diez et al. 2005: 50; Micael & Costa 2010: 322;

Eucidaris tribuloides (Lamarck, 1816) — Mortensen 1928: 400–408, pl. 41, figs. 9–16, pl. 48, fig. 1, pl. 73, fig. 1, pl. 86, fig. 16; Harvey 1956: 63; Pérez-Ruzafa et al. 1999: 50–51; Micael et al. 2012: 3.

See: H.L. Clark (1925: 21–22); Mortensen (1928); Lares & McClintock (1991); Schultz (2006: 38–39, figs. 65–67); Lessios et al. (1999); Madeira et al. (2011: 245–248).

Occurrence: restricted to the tropical areas of the Atlantic; in the west from South Carolina and Bermuda to Brazil (Mortensen 1928); in the west, present in the Gulf of Guinea (Koehler 1914b), Cape Verde (Koehler 1909), the?Azores (Koehler 1898), Ascension (Mortensen 1936) and St Helena (Mortensen 1933c).

Depth: 0–450 m (Mortensen 1928);? AZO: 130 m (Koehler 1898).

Habitat: mainly a littoral form, occurring under stones and crevices and among corals (Mortensen 1928, Pawson 1978).

Larval stage: planktotrophic (Emlet 1995).

Fossil record: Eucidaris tribuloides is a common presence in the Pliocene fossiliferous outcrops in Santa Maria Island, Azores (Madeira et al. 2011, Ávila et al. 2015b).

Remarks: Koehler (1895a, 1898) identified a small individual of E. tribuloides among the material collected by Hirondelle in the Azores (sta 226: 38°31’19”N, 28°34’31”W, 130 m). The specimen may represent a vagrant that managed to arrive in the Azores, i.e. it does not represent a real self-sustained population (for discussion see Madeira et al. 2011). Thus, until new material is collected in this area, the presence of this species in the archipelago should be treated with caution.