Pseudostichopus peripatus (Sluiter, 1901)

Reports for the Azores:

non Pseudostichopus occultatus Marenzeller, 1893 — $ Hérouard 1902: 14–15, pl. 2, figs. 4–14 [misidentification]; Nobre 1938: 156–157 [based on Hérouard 1902]; García-Diez et al. 2005: 51 [based on Hérouard 1902];

Pseudostichopus marenzelleri $ Hérouard, 1923: 25; Mortensen 1927a: 387;

Pseudostichopus lapidus $ Hérouard, 1923: 26–28, pl. 4, fig. 5; Mortensen 1927a: 387;

Meseres peripatus Sluiter— $ O’Loughlin 2002: 307–309, fig. 2f;

Pseudostichopus peripatus (Sluiter, 1901) — $ O’Loughlin & Ahearn 2005: 174–175, figs. 1f, 10f–h, 11i–l, 12g–h; Gebruk et al. 2014: 168–169.

Type locality: Indonesia .

See: O’Loughlin (2002); O’Loughlin & Ahearn (2005); Rogacheva et al. (2013: 593, fig. 18D).

Occurrence: deep-water cosmopolitan, in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, in the West Atlantic from Caribbean north to off Massachusetts, eastwards from Greenland south to the Azores area (O’Loughlin 2002, O’Loughlin & Ahearn 2005).

Habitat: soft sediments; covers itself with Globigerine foraminifera (Hérouard 1923).

Depth: 134– 5,453 m (O’Loughlin & Ahearn 2005); AZO: (?2,871) 4,020 –4,400 m (Hérouard 1923).

Remarks: Hérouard (1902) firstly identified Princesse Alice material collected in Azorean waters as Pseudostichopus occultatus . In a later report, Hérouard (1923) realized that the specimens belonged to two new different species, which he described as P. lapidus and P. marenzelleri . O’Loughlin (2002) placed both species in the synonymy of P. peripatus . However, O’Loughlin (2002) examined a specimen of P. marenzelleri collected within Azores waters (36°58’N, 26°20’W, 2,871 –2,917 m,?unreported) present in the collection of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris) and found significant differences to a point to consider its determination as P. peripatus as uncertain. Regardless, later O’Loughlin & Ahearn (2005) confirmed the synonymy of both P. marenzelleri and P. lapidus with P. peripatus .