Description (IDSSE EEB-SW 0005) MEASUREMENTS. Disc diameter 12.5 mm, length of arms from 180 to 191 mm. DiSC. Flat, interradially deeply excavated and small in relation to total body size of specimen. Disc covered with small, tumid, irregular scales, but larger on ventral than on dorsal disc. Conically tumid scales on radial shields, forming tubercles with finely thorny tip (Fig. 7 A – B), both shields and tubercles decreasing in size towards disc center. Radial shields thick, swollen, widely separated distally, convergent proximally and with additional smaller scales and tubercles. Genital slits short, vertical on ventral interradii (Fig. 7 D). Seven blunt, spearhead-shaped teeth. Jaws covered with swollen scales and no true oral papillae (Fig. 7 C – D). Adoral shield obscured by swollen scales, oral shield absent and oral tentacle pore covered by small tube-shaped scales. Entire oral area covered with tumid scales, higher and pointier towards margin of ventral disc (Fig. 7 C). ARMS. Narrow, more cylindrical and slightly swollen in first 14 – 15 free arm segments (Fig. 7 E). Dorsal and ventral arm also covered with more trapezoid tuberculous scales, distally tubercles more rounded and less elongated and arms with increasingly banded appearance distalwards (Fig. 7 E – I). Tubercles on ventral arm slightly lower and pointier than on dorsal surface. First tentacle pore with zero to one arm spine, on second to fifth arm segments one arm spine at tentacle pores, thereafter two arm spines per pore (Fig. 7 G – H). Arm spines cylindrical with thorny tip, innermost spine slightly swollen, longer than arm width, twice as long as outermost spine, with thorny tip. Outermost spine not swollen, half as long as innermost spine, tapered (Figs 7 I – J, 8 C). COLOR. Pale reddish-brown in alcohol specimen (Fig. 7), slightly stronger color in live specimen. OSSiCLE MORPHOLOGY. Lateral arm plates curved around vertebrae, bearing two strongly outwards curved arm spine articulations with large muscle and nerve openings (Fig. 8 A – B). Vertebrae with a streptospondylous articulation, with deep slope between proximal and distal end, ventrally with longitudinal groove along midline, no oral bridge (Fig. 8 D – H).
Sumber: New species, redescriptions and new records of deep-sea brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) from the South China Sea, an integrated morphological and molecular approach