The Echinoid Directory

Contributed by Andrew Smith, December 2006

Astropygaulus Checchia-Rispoli, 1945, p. 82

Diagnostic Features	Unique specimen incompletely preserved. Test low and wide with wide closed petals. Apical disc central, tetrabasla, with maderoporite dominating; four gonopores. Phyllodes present, apparently with inner and outer series of pore-pairs. Peristome with sunken vertical-walled entrace. Oblique [but probably an artefact of preservation] Periproct at posterior of oral face; trigonal; on a raised platform.
Distribution	Upper Cretaceous, North Africa (Libya)
Name gender	masculine
Type	Astropygaulus trigonopygus Checchia-Rispoli, 1945, p. 2, by original designation.
Species Included	Only the type species.
Classification and/or Status	Irregularia, Cassiduloida, incertae sedis Possibly a subjective junior synonym of Astrolampas Pomel, 1883
Remarks	Based on a single test fragment. Kier (1962, p. 223) treated this as Incertae sedis. Checchia-Rispoli, G. 1945 Di due nouvi generi di Echinidi del Cretaceo dell Somalia. Bolletino de R. Ufficio Geologico d'Italia 68 (for 1943): 81-90, pls 1-2. Kier, P. M. 1962. Revision of the cassiduloid echinoids. Smithsonian Miscellaneous collections 144 1-262, pls 1-44.