The Echinoid Directory

Anametalia Mortensen, 1950, p. 161

Diagnostic Features	Test elongate with shallow anterior sulcus that continues to peristome. Subanal region projecting as a heel. Depressed in profile. Apical disc ethmolytic with 4 gonopores; gonopores opening close to centre of disc. Apical disc offset towards anterior. Anterior ambulacrum narrow and shallowly sunken; groove continuing to peristome. Pore-pairs in anterior ambulacrum small and undifferentiated; no funnel-building tube-feet present. Other ambulacra petaloid; sunken; parallel-sided; the anterior pair widely divergent; extending almost to ambitus in plan view. The posterior pair a little longer than the lateral pair. Petals ending in small occluded plates. Periproct on posterior, obliquely truncate face, above prominent subanal heel; framed on oral side by plates 5.a.5/5.b.5. Peristome small and facing obliquely forward; partially covered by labrum. Labral plate squat; not extending beyond first ambulacral plate. Sternal plates long and bowed; much wider than adjacent ambs. Sternal plates paired and contracting posteriorly. Ambulacral plate 6 first plate to extend into subanal fasciole. Two or three tube-feet inside subanal fasciole. Rows of small primary tubercles within peripetalous fasciole. Coarser aboral tubercles and spines bounding anterior groove. Fully formed peripetalous and subanal fascioles. Subanal fasciole shield-shaped and surrounding subanal heel. Peripetalous fasciole not indented in interambulacral zones.
Distribution	Recent, Indo-Pacific.
Name gender	feminine
Type	Brissus sternaloides Bolau, 1874, p. 177, by original designation.
Species Included	A. sternaloides (Bolau, 1874); Recent, Indo-Pacific A. grandis Mortensen, 1950; Recent, Indo-China A. regularis (Clark); Recent, Torres Straight
Classification and/or Status	Spatangoida, Micrasterina, Brissidae. ?Paraphyletic (by exclusion of Cionobrissus).
Remarks	Distinguished from Cionobrissus, which has a similar subanal snout, by the absence of a deep anterior furrow that continues to a vertical peristome. Furthermore, in Cionobrissus the labral plate extends to meet the second ambulacral plate, whereas in Anametalia the labrum does not extend beyond the first ambulacral plate. Mortensen, T. 1951. A monograph of the Echinoidea. V Spatangoida 2. C. A. Reitzel, Copenhagen.