Family Ophiothricidae

Placophiothrix H. L. Clark, 1938

Placophiothrix aristulata (Lyman)

• Ophiothrix aristulata Lyman, T., 1882. Challenger Ophiuroidea, p. 223–4, Pl. 21.

Material Examined: Four specimens from 200–300 fathoms, Cook Strait, VUZ Station 51.

The species was originally described from off South Africa and off eastern Australia (Challenger Stations 142, 161, 163), but it has since been found to have a widespread distribution from Aden to New Zealand. This fine species is pink in life, like so many of the deep-water ophiuroids; among the deep-water forms of New Zealand it is rivalled in size only by Ophiocoma bollonsi, from which it is at once distinguishable by its large ring of radial shields and the spines which stand on the disc.