Othilia Gray 1840

Genus Othilia Gray, 1840 Type species. Othilia echinophora (Lamarck, 1816) (type by subsequent designation by Fisher, 1911). Remarks. Previously demoted as a subgenus of Echinaster by Clark & Tortonese (1986) because of the lack of exclusive morphological characters (see Clark & Downey [1992] for a thorough revision), the re-erection of the genus Othilia is supported by morphological (Fontanella & Hopkins 2003) and molecular evidence (Lopes et al. 2016). These phylogenies have shown that Othilia is a monophyletic group and that the genus Echinaster is more closely related to Henricia than to Othilia. Fontanella & Hopkins (2003) found five synapomorphies supporting the genus Othilia, but unfortunately these were not listed in their paper. A.M. Clark (1987) distinguished Echinaster from Othilia using two diagnostic characters: the arrangement of the dorsolateral plates, which are organized into an irregular reticulum in Echinaster and a regular reticulum in Othilia; and the presence of actinal plates between the inferomarginal and adambulacral plates in Echinaster. However, Lopes et al. (2016) mentioned that, based on the literature, E. callosus Marenzeller, 1895 and E. luzonicus (Gray, 1840) do not have actinal plates. Three species of Othilia have been reported for the Brazilian coast: O. brasiliensis, O. echinophora and O. guyanensis. Species of the genus Othilia are commercially exploited in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia as souvenirs and for the aquarium trade, and they are also used for medicinal (treatment of asthma and alcoholism) and religious purposes (Nobre & Campos-Creasey 2000; Alves et al. 2009; Alves & Dias 2010; Martins et al. 2012 [as Echinaster guyanensis]).
Published as part of Cunha, Rosana, Martins, Luciana, Menegola, Carla & Souto, Camilla, 2021, Taxonomy of the sea stars (Echinodermata: Asteroidea) from Bahia State, including ontogenetic variation and an illustrated key to the Brazilian species, pp. 1-78 in Zootaxa 4955 (1) on page 27, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4955.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/4691078
{"references":["Gray, J. E. (1840) A synopsis of the genera and species of the class Hypostoma (Asterias Linnaeus). Annals of the Magazine of Natural History, Series 1, 6 (37), 175 - 184 + 275 - 290. https: // doi. org / 10.1080 / 03745484009443296","Lamarck, J. B. (1816) Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebres. Meline, Bruxelles, 568 pp.","Fisher, W. K. (1911) Asteroidea of the North Pacific and adjacent waters. 1. Phanerozonia and Spinulosa. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, 76, i - xiii + 1 - 420 pp., 122 pls. https: // doi. org / 10.5479 / si. 03629236.76. i","Clark, A. & Tortonese, E. (1986) Echinaster sepositus madseni n. subsp., from West Africa (Echinodermata: Asteroidea). Atti della Societa Italiana di Scienze Naturali e del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milano, 127, 65 - 71.","Clark, A. M. & Downey, M. E. (1992) Starfishes of the Atlantic. Chapman and Hall, London, 794 pp. https: // doi. org / 10.5860 / choice. 30 - 2659","Fontanella, F. M. & Hopkins, T. S. (2003) Preliminary phylogeny of Echinaster (Othilia) from the Gulf of Mexico based on morphological characters (Echinodermata: Asteroidea). In: Feral, J. P. & David, B. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Sixth European Conference on Echinoderm Research, Banyuls-sur-Mer, France, 3 - 7 September 2001. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp. 91 - 95.","Clark, A. M. (1987) Notes on Atlantic and other Asteroidea Echinasteridae. Bulletin of the British Museum of Natural History, 53, 65 - 78.","Nobre, C. & Campos-Creasey, L. S. (2000) Efeito da salinidade no desenvolvimento larval de Echinaster echinophorus (Lamarck 1816) (Echinodermata: Asteroidea). Brazilian Journal of Aquatic Science and Technology, 4, 61 - 68. https: // doi. org / 10.14210 / bjast. v 4 n 1. p 61 - 68","Alves, R. N., Neto, N. L., Brooks, S. E. & Albuquerque, U. P. (2009) Commercialization of animal-derived remedies as complementary medicine in the semi-arid region of Northeastern Brazil. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 124, 600 - 608. https: // doi. org / 10.1016 / j. jep. 2009.04.049","Alves, R. N. & Dias, T. L. P. (2010) Uso de invertebrados na medicina popular no Brasil e suas implicacoes para conservacao. Tropical Conservation Science, 3 (2), 159 - 174. https: // doi. org / 10.1177 / 194008291000300204","Martins, L., Souto, C., Magalhaes, W. F., Alves, O. F. S., Rosa, I. L. & Sampaio, C. L. S. (2012) Echinoderm harvesting in Todosos-Santos Bay, Bahia State, Brazil: the aquarium trade. Sitientibus serie Ciencias Biologicas, 12 (1), 53 - 59. https: // doi. org / 10.13102 / scb 123"]}