Scoliorhapis Clark, 1946

O’Loughlin, P. Mark & VandenSpiegel, Didier, 2010, A revision of Antarctic and some Indo-Pacific apodid sea cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Apodida), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 67, pp. 61-95 : 76-78

Scoliorhapis Clark, 1946

Table 3

Scoliodota Heding, 1928: 277 , 278, 319 (junior homonym of Scoliodota H. L. Clark, 1908 ).

Scoliorhapis H. L. Clark, 1946: 461 .—Rowe (in Rowe and Gates), 1995: 267.— Smirnov, 1998: 519.— Kerr, 2001: 57.— O’Loughlin and VandenSpiegel, 2007: 53.

Scoliodotella Oguro, 1961: 2–3 .

Diagnosis (emended from H. L. Clark 1946). Taeniogyrinae with 10 or 12 peltato-digitate tentacles, each with up to 8 pairs of digits; single polian vesicle; ciliated funnels present; body wall ossicles sigmoid hooks only, hooks scattered or some clustering or alignment; lacking wheels in body wall; tentacle ossicles bracket-shaped or rods.

Type species. Scoliodota theeli Heding, 1928 .

Type locality. Australia, New South Wales, Port Jackson .

Other species. Scoliorhapis biopearli sp. nov. (Scotia Sea, S Shetland Is, 1544 m); Scoliodota lindbergi Djakonov (in Djakonov et al.), 1958 (Sea of Okhotsk, South Sakhalin and South Kurile Is, 8–22 m); Scoliorhapis massini sp. nov. (Scotia Sea, Shag Rocks, 206 m); Scoliodotella uchidai Oguro, 1961 (Cape Aikappu, Japan, shallows).

Remarks. The significant emendation to the diagnosis by H. L. Clark (1946) is the inclusion of species that have 12 tentacles. This is in response to Scoliorhapis massini sp nov. (below) having 12 tentacles.

Oguro (1961) erected his new genus Scoliodotella for chiridotid specimens with sigmoid hooks but no wheels in the body wall. He considered referring his new species to Scoliodota H. L. Clark, 1908 , unaware that H. L. Clark had rejected Scoliodota and erected the genus Scoliorhapis . Oguro did not refer his new species to Scoliodota because the hooks were not grouped into papillae. We reject clustering of ossicles as a sound generic diagnostic character, and consider Scoliodotella to be a junior synonym of Scoliorhapis .

Chiridota japonica Marenzeller, 1881 was erected for material from Japan. The species was poorly described. Théel (1886a) referred damaged specimens from Australia (New South Wales) to Chiridota japonica Marenzeller. Scoliodota H. L. Clark, 1908 was erected as a new monotypic genus for Chiridota japonica Marenzeller from Japan and the Théel material from New South Wales on the basis of hook ossicles only in the body wall. But Clark (1908) commented that the Marenzeller and Théel materials might represent different species. Ohshima (1913) reported that Chiridota japonica von Marenzeller had both hook and wheel ossicles, and belonged to Trochodota Ludwig, 1891 .

Clark (1921) rejected his own genus Scoliodota Clark, 1908 on the grounds that his type species Chiridota japonica von Marenzeller belonged to Trochodota Ludwig. Heding (1928) stated that Clark (1921) abandoned Scoliodota Clark without considering the Théel specimens from New South Wales. Heding (1928) erected a new species for the New South Wales specimens that lacked wheels, and referred them to Scoliodota Clark. Heding (1928) nominated his Scoliodota theeli Heding, 1928 as the new type for Scoliodota Clark, 1908 .

Clark (1946) insisted that he selected Japanese material as type for his Scoliodota , although that is not explicit in the text ( Clark 1908). Clark (1946) rejected Heding’s resurrection of Scoliodota Clark , and erected a new monotypic genus Scoliorhapis Clark, 1946 with type species Scoliodota theeli Heding, 1928 .

Clark (1921) noted that Chiridota geminifera Dendy and Hindle, 1907 had hook ossicles but lacked wheels, but because of the single small and damaged type specimen considered the material to be unreliable for referral to Scoliodota Clark. He considered Chiridota geminifera Dendy and Hindle to be a junior synonym of Trochodota dunedinensis ( Parker, 1881) .