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Goniasteridae

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Goniasteridae
Temporal range: 182–Recent Ma
Pentagonaster duebeni
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Echinodermata
Class: Asteroidea
Order: Valvatida
Family: Goniasteridae
Forbes, 1841
Genera

See text.

Goniasteridae (Biscuit Stars) constitute the largest family of sea stars, included in the order Valvatida. They are mostly deep-dwelling species, but the family also include several colorful shallow tropical species.

Description

Fromia indica
Nectria ocellata
Neoferdina insolita

Goniasteridae are usually middle-sized sea stars with a characteristic double range of marginal plates bordering the disk and arms. Most of them have five arms, often short and triangular, around a broad central disc ; lots of species are pentagonal or subpentagonal, covered densely with granular, seed-like protuberances, hence the name of the family "seed-star" (gonium+aster). The aboral face is often covered with tiny spines looking like paxillae. Pedicellariae are often valvate, and the gonads are located at the interradius.[1]

Main identification keys for this group include the presence of paxillae, granules, teeth, spines, or the shape and dimensions of marginal plate.[2]

Location and habitat

They occur predominantly on deep-water continental shelf habitats (but a part of them inhabit shallow waters) in all the world's oceans, being the most diverse in the Indo-Pacific region.[3]

List of genera

About 260 extant species within 70 genera are currently known, which make this family the most diverse of all the sea stars,[4] even if half of the genera are monospecific. Species belonging to the Ferdininae subfamily have been imported from Ophidiasteridae thanks to a large revision of these two families in 2017[5]

According to World Register of Marine Species, this family includes the following genera:[6]

Extinct genera

Fossil of Marocaster coronatus.
Ray fragment of fossil goniasterid; Zichor Formation (Coniacian, Upper Cretaceous), southern Israel.

Lists of genera containing extinct species according to fossilworks.[7]

References

  1. ^ "Family Goniasteridae". Marine Species Identification Portal.
  2. ^ "Family Goniasteridae". nzetc.victoria.ac.nz.
  3. ^ Clark, A. M. An index of names of recent Asteroidea Part 2: Valvatida. Echinoderm Studies 4 (1993)
  4. ^ Christopher Mah (23 April 2013). "How many starfish species are there ? Where do they Live ? How long have they been around ? Five Points about Sea Star Diversity". The Echinoblog.
  5. ^ Christopher Mah, "Overview of the Ferdina-like Goniasteridae (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) including a new subfamily, three new genera and fourteen new species", Zootaxa, vol. 4271, 2017.
  6. ^ Christopher Mah (2014), Goniasteridae Forbes, 1841, In: Mah, C.L. (2014) World Asteroidea database, accessed through World Register of Marine Species
  7. ^ "Fossilworks: Goniasteridae". fossilworks.org. Retrieved 2019-04-06.
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