spatangoid

Etymology

noun

1. (zoology) Any echinoderm of the order Spatangoida, of heart urchins.
   The enlarged rear interambulacrum on the oral side of holasteroids and spatangoids is known as the plastron. 1983, Ulrich Lehmann, Fossil Invertebrates, page 292
   Spatangoids constitute a monophyletic group of heart urchins that appears in the early Cretaceous (145 M.Y. ago) and ranges to the Recent. 2003, Gunther J. Eble, “Developmental Morphospaces and Evolution”, in James P. Crutchfield, Peter Schuster, editors, Evolutionary Dynamics, page 47
   Oval tests with specific ventral morphology for efficient burrowing allowed spatangoids to burrow deeply in sand to avoid gastropod predation. 2010, Kenichi Kanazawa, “Adaptive evolution in Cenozoic spatangoid echinoids”, in Mike Reich, Joachim Reitner, Vanessa Roden, Ben Thuy, editors, Echinoderm Research 2010: 7th European Conference on Echinoderms, Göttingen, page 61