Taxonomy of Ophiuroidea (Echinodermata) species from Brazil

 Ofiuróides, diversidade, Brasil, Atlântico ocidental, distribuição

RESUMO EM INGLÊS: Brittle stars are find in great variety of marine environments as sandy substrates and slit rocky, and are epizoic of marine invertebrates as corals, sponges, polychaetas and bryozoans. The first report of Ophiuroidea from Brazil occurs in 17^th century when Astrophyton muricatum (Lamarck, 1816) was documented, and despite increase of study about the class in 20^th century, the taxonomic status of some species is unknown, since species not reported after the original description or documented without taxonomic information. Thus, this study aims to perform a faunistic survey and morphological characterization of ophiuroids recorded from Brazil. More than 6.000 species deposited in national and international scientific collections were analyzed. Brittle stars were studied with a stereomicroscope and arm ossicles of some specimens were observed in scanning electron microscope. Of the 141 species previously the occurrence of Ophiocreas lumbricus Lyman, 1869, Gorgonocephalus chilensis (Phillipi, 1858), Ophioscolex glacialis Müller & Troschel, 1842, Ophiomitrella cordifera Köehler, 1986, Sigsbeia sp., Ophiolepis kieri Hendler, 1979, Ophiomisidium speciosum Köehler, 1914, Ophiostriatus striatus (Mortensen, 1933), Ophiura clemens (Köehler, 1904), Ophioderma besnardi Tommasi, 1970, Amphilepis sanmatiensis Bernasconi & D’Agostino, 1975, Ophiactis muelleri Lütken, 1856, Ophiocnida loveni (Ljungman, 1866), Ophiacantha cosmica Lyman, 1878, Ophiophragmus filograneus (Lyman, 1875), Ophiothrix angulata (Say, 1825) e Ophiothrix brachyactis Clark, 1915) were considered invalid from Brazil. This study registered for first time the species Breviturma paucigranulata (Devaney, 1974), Ophiarachnella petersi (Lyman, 1878), Ophioderma rubicundum Lütken, 1856, Ophiomyxa stimpsoni (Lyman, 1875), Ophiourochaeta littoralis (Köehler, 1913), Ophiomitra valida Lyman, 1869 e Ophionereis vittata Hendler, 1995, Astrotoma agassizii Lyman, 1875, Asteroschema elongatum Köehler, 1914 e Asteroschema nuttingi Verrill, 1899 from Brazil. This study proposes new combinations from species known as Ophiocnida loveni (Ljungman, 1867) e Ophiomisidium tommasii Borges, Monteiro & Amaral, 2006. Astrothamnus sp. nov., Ophiuroglypha sp. nov., Ophioscolex sp. nov. and Ophiostriatus sp. nov. are described from science, as the Gorgonocephalidae gen. nov. The ophiuroid fauna of Brazil comprise 149 species, 72 genera e 27 families, representing approximately 6,5% of the worldwide known diversity, being the second larger diversity from West Atlantic and the bigger number of species registered from South Atlantic.