The Echinoid Directory

Physaster Pomel, 1883, p. 47

[=Inflataster Anthula, 1899, p. 8, objective ]

Diagnostic Features	Test inflated, ovate with no anterior sulcus; flattened above and below. Test thick-shelled. Apical disc ethmophract with four gonopores. All ambulacra similar aborally; pore-pairs small and not differentiated. Peristome small and circular; slightly depressed and facing downwards. Labral plate longitudinally elongate; extending to midway down ambulacral plate 2. Sternal plates not much longer; median suture oblique; subsequent plating biserial. Periproct small and towards top of posterior truncate face. Apparently no fascioles. Aboral tuberculation consisting of small scattered tubercles set in a groundmass of granules.
Distribution	Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian) Senegal, Turkey, Ukraine.
Name gender	masculine
Type	Holaster inflatus Desor, in Agassiz & Desor, 1847, p. 134, by original designation.
Species Included	P. inflatus (Desor, 1847); Cenomanian, Senegal. P. vasseuri Dalloni & Lambert; Cenomanian, Turkey. P. abichi (Anthula, 1899); Cenomanian, Caucasus.
Classification and/or Status	Spatangoida, Hemiasterina, Aeropsidae. Presumably paraphyletic, by exclusion of Homoeaster etc.
Remarks	Originally treated as a holasteroid but transferred to the Spatangoida by Stokes (1986). Differs from Homoeaster only in having sternal plates asymmetric, with a distinctly oblique median suture. Pomel, A. 1883. Classification méthodique et genera des Échinides vivante et fossiles. Thèses présentées a la Faculté des Sciences de Paris pour obtenir le Grade de Docteur ès Sciences Naturelles, 503, 131 pp. Aldolphe Jourdan, Alger. Stokes, R. B. 1986. On the Cretaceous echinoid Physaster Pomel, 1883. Journal of Palaeontology 60, 1272-1273.