Luidia ciliaris Mortensen 1927

Luidia ciliaris (Philippi, 1837) Reports for the Azores:

Luidia ciliaris (Philippi, 1837) — $ D̂derlein 1920: 287–288, figs. 8, 17, 34; Madsen 1950: 205–206, fig. 8; A.M. Clark 1982a: 170, fig. 3k; Gage et al. 1983: 272; A.M. Clark & Downey 1992: 11–12, figs. 7k, 8h, pl. 2, fig. E; Sneli 1999: 233;? $ Wirtz 2009: 46–47; Micael et al. 2012: 5.

Type locality: Sicily, Mediterranean Sea.

See: A.M. Clark (1982a); A.M. Clark & Downey (1992).

Occurrence: Mediterranean Sea and Northeast Atlantic; from Scandinavia, the Faeroe Channel (Sneli 1999) south to Morocco (Mortensen 1925) and? Cape Verde (A.M. Clark (1982a), including the Azores, Madeira (D̂derlein 1920) and Canaries (Madsen 1950).

Depth: 1–650(?805) m (A.M. Clark 1982a, Gage et al. 1983), typically from 25 to 200 m (Madsen 1950); AZO:?littoral.

Habitat: hard to soft sediments, often found partly buried in gravel (Picton 1993).

Larval stage: planktotrophic (Mortensen 1921).

Remarks: the first record of Luidia ciliaris in the Azores can be trace back to D̂derlein’s (1920) review of the genus, which included a specimen collected in the archipelago from the Simroth collection, though the later author never included any material belonging to this species or genus in his 1888’s report. More recently, Wirtz (2009) reported an animal of Luidia ciliaris in a large tide-pool at Faial Island (not collected). The latter author claimed that a picture could be found in Wirtz & Debelius (2003), however, the photographed specimen in the 2003 work is from Madeira. The absence of documented specimens in the archipelago in over 80 years places the presence of this species in the Azores in a somewhat precarious position and thus, should be dealt with caution.