Diagnosis
provided by World Register of Marine Species
Among all known extant taxa, very few Clypeaster species possess completely unique features (i.e. autapomorphies). Therefore, early workers used unique combinations of relatively conspicuous features to diagnose new species, and this is also the approach here. Nevertheless, among the Clypeaster species recorded from the Philippines, Clypeaster brigitteae n. sp. is unique with respect to certain characters, and these are marked with an asterisk in the following list of relevant characters: Clypeaster with all petals widely open*; fewer than 9 respiratory pore pairs counted within a section 5 mm long along the length of single column in each petal; only 1 or 2 primary tubercles in poriferous zone between adjacent respiratory pore pairs*; interambulacral basicoronals separated from first pair of post-basicoronals by two plates from each adjacent ambulacrum; single occluded distal plate (very rarely two) in petal*; aboral primary tubercles not densely distributed (only about 50/cm2)*; valves of ophicephalous large (largest of trio usually about 400 µm long).
Mooi, R.; Noordenburg, H. V. (2021). A new species and comparative morphology of Philippine sea biscuits (Echinoidea: Clypeaster). Zootaxa. 4964(1): 1-36.
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