The Discovery Expedition sea cucumbers (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea)
Author
O’Loughlin, P. Mark
Marine Biology Section, Museum Victoria, GPO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia
pmoloughlin@edmundrice.org
text
Memoirs of Museum Victoria
2016
2016-12-31
75
53
70
journal article
10.24199/j.mmv.2016.75.03
1447-2554
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7039F593-8FE2-4668-BBC9-E18F2D82F8F8
2.
Ocnus capensis
(
Théel, 1886
)
.
We have identified a single
Discovery
Expedition specimen from the sub-littoral of Saldanha Bay in south-west
South Africa
as
Ocnus capensis
(
Théel, 1886
)
(MS 82, off Salamander Point,
7–14 m
,
6 Sept 1926
,
NHMUK
2016.143). We based our determination on the description and illustration by
Théel (1886)
of the
three type
specimens collected from 179–274 meters off
Cape
Town in
South Africa
. Saldanha Bay is close to the
type
locality for this species. Based on our laboratory notes and sketches, Frank Rowe (
pers. comm.
) judged that the species is
Ocnus capensis
, but thought that the species would be better assigned to
Pseudocnus
Panning, 1949
. Rowe judged that genus
Ocnus
Forbes & Goodsir, 1839
(in
Forbes, 1841
) is restricted to the Mediterranean and north European shore, and that genus
Pentacta
Goldfuss, 1820
is a monotypic endemic
South Africa
genus.
Thandar (1991)
described and illustrated and discussed
Ocnus capensis
, and Ahmed Thandar (
pers. comm.
) expressed some doubt about our identification. He considered the species to be a deep water one. We acknowledge that there is thus some doubt about our identification.