The Echinoid Directory

• Test small with moderately sharp margin; circular in outline with flat base and vaulted upper surface.
• Apical disc with 4 gonopores.
• Internal radial partition arrangement not recorded.
• Petals moderately well developed.
• Interambulacral zones disjunct on oral surface; plating not recorded in detail.
• Aboral plating unknown (Cotteau's figures are unreliable).
• Periproct aboral, close to posterior margin.
• Food grooves absent.

Late Oligocene, South Australia.

Scutellina morgani Cotteau, 1891, by original designation.

• P. morgani (Cotteau, 1891); Late Oligocene, Mount Gambier, Australia.

Clypeasteroida; Clypeasterina; Arachnoididae; Fossulasterinae.

Monotypic?

Poorly known, but apparently distinguished from Scutellinoides only in having well-developed petals. Plesiomorphic sister group to other fossulasterines which differ in having petals rudimentary or absent. Philip & Foster (1971 p. 682) commented briefly on the holotype and considered it very similar in structure to Scutellinoides but worthy of generic distinction because of the difference in its aboral petals. Irwin (1995, p. 197) reported that plate structure was not discernable on any of the three specimens he had seen.

Philip, G. M. & Foster, R. J. 1971. Marsupiate Tertiary echinoids from south-eastern Australia and their zoogeographic significance. Palaeontology 14, 666-695.

Wang, C.-C. 1994. Phylogenetic analysis of the fossulasterid echinoids (Order Clypeasteroida) from Australia. Journal of the Geological Society of China 37, 225-246.

Irwin, R. P. 1995. New family and genus of Clypeasteroida (Echinoidea) from the Australian Tertiary. Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 18, 189-198.