Gilan Attaran-Fariman; Azadeh Beyg-Moradi; Hassan Zadeh-Abbas Shahabadi
Volume 5, Issue 4 , May 2017, , Pages 11-20
Abstract
Brittle stars belonging to family Ophiotrichidae and genus Ophiothrix are of common species in the intertidal zones and coral reefs of tropical region. Members of genus Ophiothrix are well distributed in Chabahar Bay at northern coast of Oman sea. These species morphologically are very simillar to species ...
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Brittle stars belonging to family Ophiotrichidae and genus Ophiothrix are of common species in the intertidal zones and coral reefs of tropical region. Members of genus Ophiothrix are well distributed in Chabahar Bay at northern coast of Oman sea. These species morphologically are very simillar to species of genus Macrophiothrix because of that often separating them based on morphological characteristics is difficult. That is why their accurate classification requires detailed morphological and molecular studies simultaneously. Sampling was taken place in Tis (Chabahar Bay) to study the morphology and Phylogeny of brittle stars based on COI gene sequence. Morphologically, this species has a five-lobed disc, trapezoidal arm plates and rectangular abdominal plates both are granular. Also, according to the results of molecular analysis Ophiothrix sp. With 49% bootstrap is supported in the clade of genus Ophiothrix and shows a monophyletic relationship with members of this genus. Although it is weakly supported, it seems that this species is a new species which due to the lack of studies about brittle stars of this region remains unknown.
