General Information

COMMON NAMES: Cook Islands Brittlestar GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION: NATIVE Cook Islands COOK ISLANDS STATUS: Native, Endemic of Cooks; Marine, deep-bottom (~400m) KEY FEATURES: Large disc, to 22mmØ, with long unbranched arms to 200mm. DISC covered with think skin. DISC TOPSIDE (=dorsal) with radial shields pale, 10, spoke-like, narrow and elevated, with outer section with 7-15 tubercles; interradials brown. DISC UNDERSIDE (=ventral) cream, skin smooth without prominent tubercles; mouth with 5 rows of teeth; oral shields absent. ARMS covered with think skin. ARMS TOPSIDE with 2 dorsolateral rows of prominent tubercles. ARMS UNDERSIDE with 2 ventrolateral rows of prominent tubercles.

Cook Islands Distribution

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Southern Group:    Makatea:
RR	MG	AT	MK	MT	AK	PL	TK	MN

Northern Group: Present
TN	MH	RK	PK	NS	SW
			P

Asterostegus maini McKnight, 2003
SYNONYMS: Astrocerus elegans

TAXONOMY: ANIMALIA; ECHINODERMATA; ELEUTHEROZOA; STELLEROIDEA; OPHIUROIDEA; Ophiuroida; EURYALIDAE

GENERAL NOTE: The genus Asterostegus was previously known from a single specimen of Asterostegus tuberculatus from South Africa. The Cook Islands species (Asterostegus maini) is the second in the genus and differs in having tubercules restricted to the outer half of the radial shields, a wider bare dorsal arm surface, often more than two tubercles on the proximal dorsolateral plates, and a single row of ventral disc plates interradially.

Vouchers:
Pukapuka: one specimen from ~430m, near Pukapuka, 4/1986, in NIWA Wellington (#H-733), ID D.McKnight 1989 as Astrocerus elegans, and reID as Asterostegus maini n.sp. D.McKnight 2003, see special references.

References:
Special Reference: McKnight, D. G. (2003) A new species of Asterostegus (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) from the Cook Islands, South Pacific Ocean. Species Diversity 8(4):385-389.

Data Update History (information):
zTX, zB04b, zM04b, zD04b

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