Two new sea star species discovered in PH
MANILA, Philippines—Two new species of sea stars have been discovered in the Philippines, the National Museum announced last Friday.
The two species, scientifically named Hyalinothrix diversus and Hyalinothrix vitrispinum, were found off Balut Island at depths of around 150 to 250 meters.
The National Museum via Facebook described the new discoveries as “variably shaped and elongate glassine spined sea star species.”
The two have been included in the Zootaxa article “New species and occurrence records of Japanese Solasteridae and Ganeriidae including a new species of Paralophaster from the North Pacific with an overview of Hyalinothrix” described and authored by Dr. Christopher Mah of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and Dr. Toshihiko Fujita of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tsukuba, Japan.
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The name H. diversus stemmed from the Latin word “diversus,“ for the species displays an “unusually diverse morphology of the plates on the body surface” which is known as “paxillae,” according to the National Museum.
Article continues after this advertisementH. vitrispinum meanwhile was derived from the Latin word “vitrum,” meaning glass or glassy, and “spinum” for the elongate glassine spines covering the surface plates present on this species.
“The article’s main focus is the discovery of six new records and four undescribed species of sea stars from Japanese waters with records of occurrence in the Philippines resulting from the study of the asteroid collections at the National Museum of Nature and Science (NSMT) in Tsukuba, Japan,” the National Museum noted.
