Recent Brachiopoda from the oceanographic expedition SEAMOUNT 2 to the north-eastern Atlantic in 1993

Eight species of recent brachiopods belonging to the genera Neocrania, Dyscolia, Abyssothyris, Stenosarina, Eucalathis, Platidia, Phaneropora and Dallina have been identified from collections from the 1993 SEAMOUNT 2 expedition to Meteor, Hyères, Irving-Cruiser, Plato, Atlantis, Tyro and Antialtair seamounts in the north-eastern Atlantic. The species misidentified by Jeffreys (1878) as Terebratula vitrea var. sphenoidea [non Philippi, 1844] is described as Stenosarina davidsoni n.sp. The affinities of the SEAMOUNT 2 brachiopods are with the Mauritanian biogeographic province. Diversity and number of stations yielding brachiopods increase from south to north in the cluster of six seamounts (Meteor-Tyro) south of the Azores. Brachiopod diversity for the seven seamounts as a whole is less than for the Canary Islands to the east. There is an as yet unexplained absence from the seamounts of deeper water species belonging to such genera as Pelagodiscus, Hispanirhynchia, Terebratulina, Gryphus, Megerlia and Macandrevia , which commonly occur around island archipelagos such as Madeira, the Canaries and the Cape Verde, as well as off the Iberian coast and the African mainland.