Chiridota durbanensis Thandar, 1996

THANDAR, AHMED S., 2007, Additions to the aspidochirotid, molpadid and apodid holothuroids (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea) from the east coast of southern Africa, with descriptions of new species, Zootaxa 1414 (1), pp. 1-62 : 58

Chiridota durbanensis Thandar, 1996

Chiridota durbanensis Thandar, 1996: 208 , fig. 1 & 2.

Type SAM-A27712 .

Type locality Cave Rock , off Durban Bluff, KZN, South Africa, 20 m.

Previous southern African record Type locality only.

Material examined

SAM-A 27952, south of South Pier, Durban Bay, UCT Ecological Survey, sieving-grid of dredge, 12.1.1951, 3 fragments.

Description

All fragments badly contracted, lacking anterior and extreme posterior ends, longest fragment 125 mm, width 8 mm, other fragments 20 mm and 60 mm. Colour greyish-brown, darker dorsally. Body wall covered with dense papillae, wheel papillae absent. Spicules of body wall as curved, terminally bifurcate rods, 26–94 µm (mean 62 µm), without central thickening; no deposits in radial muscles.

Distribution Southern KZN, South Africa, shallow.

Habitat Sand.

Remarks

The material at hand was left unidentified by Dr Cherbonnier when he reported on the southern African collections. Although anterior and posterior ends are missing there is no doubt that the material represents Chiridota durbanensis because of its size, colouration, dense papillose skin, absence of wheel papillae and radial muscle deposits and the presence, in the body wall, of only curved rods without a central thickening. This is a second record of the species described as? 100 mm long. If the three fragments here recorded belonged together, the species length will far exceed its recorded size. The rods are slightly larger than those recorded for the type, perhaps due to the larger size of the present material. Thandar (1996) remarked on two other congenerics, which either lack wheel papillae ( Toxodora pacifica Ohshima, 1915 from Japan) or have poorly developed wheel papillae ( T. ferruginea Verrill, 1882 from the eastern coast of USA) and supported the relegation of Toxodora to the synonymy of Chiridota .