Catalog of ophiuroidea from southeastern coast of Iran (Northern parts of Oman sea)

Abstract

Introduction Chabahar Bay is located in southeastern coast of Iran and the northern part of the Oman Sea in the geographic area of 25°22? 47?N  and 60°39?  90?E. This Bay with having a variety of coverings, such as, muddy, stone, sandy and rocky, has provided possibility of life for different taxa, such as, shellfish, mollusks, echinoderm ( Ghanbarifardi and Malek, 2009; Yazdani et al., 2009; Sadeghi and Loghmani, 2010; Khaleghi and Owfi, 2011; Fazeli et al., 2013; Attaran et al., 2014). Ophiuroids are relatively small echinoderms that all live in marine habitats, such as, sandy, rocky, stony, muddy, on sponge and corals (Barnes et al., 2001). Ophiuroids with above 2,000 species are a big group of echinodermata distributed in all marine environments from polar to the equator, and from the intertidal to subtidal zone (Pawson, 2007). In the present study, ophiuroids species are identified based on their morphological features and introduced from Chabahar bay.