Ophiothrix luetkeni Thomson 1873

Ophiothrix luetkeni Thomson, 1873 Reports for the Azores:

Ophiothrix luetkeni Thomson, 1873 —? $ Lyman 1879: 54, 1882: 218, 286; Bell 1892: 133; $ Koehler 1909: 201–202, pl. 29, figs. 8–10; Koehler 1924: 254–257; Mortensen 1927a: 176–177, fig. 99; Pereira 1997: 332; García-Diez et al. 2005: 48; Micael & Costa 2010: 322; Micael et al. 2012: 3.

Type locality: SW Ireland.

See: Thomson (1873: 100); Koehler (1921b: 71–72, fig. 46); Mortensen (1927a).

Occurrence: Northeast Atlantic from the British Islands to Cape Verde (Mortensen 1927a), including the Azores Archipelago and Josephine Seamount (Koehler 1909).

Depth: 130–838 (?932) m (Thomson 1873, Koehler 1909); AZO:?54–165 (?823) m (Lyman 1882, Koehler 1909).

Habitat: soft bottom (rarely on hard substrates), sand, gravel and shelly substrates (Koehler 1909, 1921b).

Remarks: the first report of O. luetkeni in the Azores was by Lyman (1879), though he remarked that the specimen was too young and left the identification tentative. The depth of 823 m (H.M.S. Challenger, sta 75: 38°37’N, 28°30’W) reported by Lyman seems a result of mislabelling. We believe that the station’s depth might be much shallower, 92–165 m (see remarks under Astropecten hermatophilus Sladen, 1883). In contrast, Koehler (1909) recorded this species in the Azores at 54 m, a surprisingly shallow depth since this species generally tends to occur below 100 m (see Koehler 1921b). In spite of the small size of Princesse Alice individuals (DD: 5–8 mm), it is hard to believe that Koehler (1909), who was familiar with the morphological variability of both O. fragilis and O. luetkeni, could have misidentified the specimens. Thus, we believe that a possible mislabelling occurred in the depth values of the stations.