The Marine Fauna of New Zealand: Sea Cucumbers ( Echinodermata: Holothuroidea )
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ISSN 2538-1016; 52 NEW ZEALAND DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH BULLETIN 201 The Marine Fauna of New Zealand: Sea Cucumbers ( Echinodermata: Holothuroidea ) by DAVID L. PAWSON New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Memoir No. 52 1970 NEW ZEALAND DEPARTMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH BULLETIN 201 The Marine Fauna of New Zealand: Sea Cucumbers ( Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) by DAVID L. PAWSON New Zealand Oceanographic Institute Memoir No. 52 Price: $2.50 June 1970 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ This publication should be referred to as: Bull. N.Z. Dep. scient. ind. Res. 201 Received for publication May 1968 © Crown Copyright 1970 A. R. SHEARER, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND-1970 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ FOREWORD Since the early nineteenth century there has been continuous marine biological research in New Zealand. Up to 1900 over 850 papers on the marine zoology of New Zealand had been published. Most of this and later work has appeared as discrete papers, there being relatively few monographic or serial comprehensive treatments of particular taxonomic groups. Despite some substantial contributions in this form, the lack of detailed accounts enabling the ready recognition of species in many other groups has hampered the development of ecological work dependent on such identification. Since 1955 the N.Z. Oceanographic Institute has been developing a programme of research in benthic ecology in the New Zealand region and the effects of this scarcity of systematic monographs of the marine fauna have been particularly evident. However, the opportunities that have arisen in the course of sampling programmes have provided additional material for systematic consideration, and a number of specialists in systematic groups have interested themselves in working on the New Zealand fauna. In this memoir the author has utilised large collections of holothurians made by the Institute and additional material from the Dominion Museum, Wellington. The resulting analysis of the holothurian fauna is a substantial addition to our knowledge of New Zealand marine animals. The work is a contribution to the studies on the Marine Fauna of New Zealand published in this memoir series. The preliminary editing of this manuscript was carried out by Miss B. Davison, N.Z. Oceanographic Institute. J. W. BRODIE, Director N.Z. Oceanographic Institute Wellington This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ CONTENTS PAGE Abstract 7 Introduction 7 Scope of This Report 8 Previous Work 8 Acknowledgments 9 Station Data 10 Preparation of Specimens- 16 Morphology and Systematic Characters 17 Checklist of New Zealand Holothurians 21 Key to the New Zealand Holothurians 22 Systematics 24 Class Holothuroidea 24 Subclass Dendrochirotacea 24 Order Dendrochirotida 24 Order Dactylochirotida 40 Subclass Apodacea 42 Order Apodida 42 Order Molpadida 47 Subclass Aspidochirotacea 50 Order Aspidochirotida .. 50 Order Elasipodida 52 Composition, Distribution, and Relationships of the New Zealand Holothurian Fauna 57 References 60 Index 66 PLATES PAGE PLATE 1 l. Placothuria huttoni 63 2. Heterothyone ocnoides 63 3. Heterothyone alba 63 4. Neocucumella bicolumnata 63 5. Ocnus calcarea 63 6. Amphicyclus thomsoni 63 7. Amphicyclus thomsoni 63 PLATE 2 1. Ocnus brevidentis 65 2. Paracaudina chilensis 65 3. Pentadactyla longidentis 65 4. Chiridota nigra 65 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ The Marine Fauna of New Zealand: Sea Cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) by DAVID L. PAWSO Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. ABSTRACT The New Zealand holothurian faunanow comprises 49 species belonging to 36 genera. All orders of the Class Holothuroidea occur in New Zealand, and the Dendrochirotida, Elasipodida, and Apodida are particularly well represented. The fauna is reviewed here, the report being based upon a total of J ,J 21 specimens in the collections of the ew Zealand Oceanographic Institute, the Dominion Museum, and other institutions. Keys are given to all taxa, and a general key to the species is given. One new family is diagno ed. to accommodate the ew Zealand genus Heterothyo11e. Notable features of the fauna are the high incidence of primitive (U-shaped) species and the presence of only one conspicuous species (Sric/10p11s mo/lis (Hutton)) in the intertidal zone. The holothurians do not demonstrate provincial distribution patterns as convincingly as do the asteroids and echinoids. Twelve species have been collected in the intertidal zone; of these seven extend to the continental shelf or slope. Of the 27 species known from the continental shelf, 14 range into bathyal depths. In the bathyal zone 31 species occur, of which J 7 are apparently re tricted to those depths. Relationships and origin of the fauna are difficultto determine in the absence of a fossil record. At the species level 83 % of the shelf holothurians are restricted to the New Zealand region. Four species are shared with Australia, and one with Juan Fernandez Island. In contrast, approximately 45 % of the shelf echinoids are shared with Australia. The genera represented in the fauna are mainly wide spread in world seas, and thus offer no conclusive evidence of affinities of the New Zealand fauna. It is concluded that, as many other invertebrate groups in the New Zealand fauna are obviously derived chiefly from the Austraiian-lndo-Pacificregion, the holothurians also were probably derived from the same source. INTRODUCTION Holothurians are generally inconspicuous, limp, soft the deepest trenches, in which latter habitat they may bodied animals, often of unattractive appearance. They comprise up to 90 % of the total biomass. The general have been neglected by many students of echinoderms form of the body often provides some indication of the in favour of more aesthetically pleasing groups, and thus habitat preferred, and habitats range from mud to rock. today they form one of the less well known classes of Many species, particularly in the southern oceans, live echinoderms. They do not exhibit to such a striking attached to seaweeds. degree the pentamerous symmetry so typical of other Among extant echinoderms, the closest relatives of extant echinoderms; rather the body generally has a pro the holothurians appear to be the echinoids (see Fell, nounced bilateral symmetry externally. Many species 1965), but the holothurians have some remarkable primi have five rows of tube feet externally, but others have tive features, the most striking being the presence of a none and appear superficially rather like annelids. Jn single gonad, a character that was widespread in Paleo contrast to other echinoderms, the endoskeleton is zoic echinoderms. Some living genera of holothurians usually reduced to a layer of scattered, minute, calcareous may possibly be survivors of archaic groups (Pawson, deposits which appear to have no regular arrangement. 1966), but the poor fossil record does little to strengthen Holothurians are generally benthonic, although a few speculations about the evolution of the group. Such bathypelagic species are known. They are exclusively speculations must be based largely on structure of recent marine, and only two species are known to inhabit forms, coupled with interpretation of the known fossil brackish waters. They range from the intertidal zone to history of other echinoderms. 7 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Most of the New Zealand species are off-shore forms, Later Hutton (1878) described three further species: and fewspecies can be found between the tides. Only one Cucumaria thomsoni, Labidodesmus turbinatus, and large species, Stichopus mollis (Hutton), is common in Holothuria robsoni. Thyone longidentis was referred to a shallow water; other shallow-water species are small, and new genus, Pentadactyla, and Chiridota ? alba to Echino live attached to seaweed, buried in sandy mud, or con cucumis. Many of Hutton's descriptions were inadequate, cealed under rocks. Our knowledge of the biology and and several of his species are either no longer recognis ecology of New Zealand holothurians is regrettably able or have been reduced to synonymy. scanty. Apart fromthe studies by Dawbin (1949a, 1949b) Parker (1881) described Chiridota dunedinensis from on autovisceration and regeneration in Stichopus mol!is, New Zealand, and later Theel (1882, 1886) described no published reports on the biology of local species have Stichopus sordidus, Thyonidium rugosum, Ankyroderma appeared. Virtually nothing is known of the feeding marenzelleri, Trochostorna violaceum, Holothuria lactea, habits, behaviour, and reproductive biology of New Enypniastes eximia, and Pannychia mose!eyi, most of Zealand holothurians. Investigations along these lines which were deep-water species,