Holothuria (Selenkothuria) parva Krauss

Holothuria (Selenkothuria) parva Krauss View in CoL (in Lampert, 1885)

( Figures 2 View FIGURE 2 & 3 View FIGURE 3 )

Holothuria parva Krauss View in CoL (inLampert, 1885): 246, pl. 1, fig. 38; Théel, 1886: 264; Koehler &Vaney, 1908: 13, pl. 1, fig. 4; H.L. Clark, 1923: 424; Deichmann, 1948: 339, pl. 17, fig. 22–27; Cherbonnier, 1952: 503, pl. 49, fig. 1–23; Eisapour et al., 2022: 67 & 69, fig. 3; Thandar, 2022: 222. fig. 117.

Holothuria (Holothuria) lubrica var. parva Panning, 1934 (II): 45, text-fig. 39.

Holothuria lubrica var. parva Mitsukuri, 1912: 97 .

Halodeima parva Heding, 1940: 120 .

Selenkothuria parva Deichmann, 1958: 315 (passim).

Holothuria (Selenkothuria) parva Rowe, 1969: 135 (passim); Clark & Rowe, 1971: 178 (dist.); Samyn et al., 2006: 94-95, fig. 72; Pourvali et al., 2014; 397-398, fig. 5.

Holothuria (Selenkothuria) perrieri Thandar, 1977: 62 , fig. 2.

Diagnosis (from Samyn et al., 2006, amended herein). The body dark brown, bivium lighter than trivium; podia and tentacles yellowish. Tegument relatively hard. Mouth ventral, encircled by 20 short peltate tentacles, anus terminal. Podia of trivium short, thick, with large, yellowish sucking discs; those of the bivium scattered, papilliform. Cuvierian tubules numerous, white, unbranched. Body wall ossicles short, thorny and/or spinous rods. Podial ossicles like those of body wall, with some ossicles bearing a hole resulting from fusion of some long spines; end plates present, multilocular, flat, with large central holes and smaller marginal ones. Tentacles with elongated spiny rods of varying length. Some podia plates with 5–12 holes, circular discs, and rod spicules in dorsal and ventral surfaces. Cuvierian organs present, unbranched.

Material examined. Two specimens collected from the intertidal zone at Gariyan Beach (25°00’57” N, 61°46’44” E) at low tide (at about - 0.14 m depth) by Qadeer Mohammad Ali, Iqra Shaikh and Ateeqa Baloch on 11August 2022.

Description. Length and weight of preserved specimens 10 cm / 55 gr, and 8 cm / 41 gr, respectively. Live colouration dark brown bivium with lighter trivium, podia and tentacles yellowish, preserved specimens turn black within 24 hrs. Twenty small peltate tentacles surrounding the mouth. Podia of the bivium, few, papilliform with reduced discs and much smaller than those of the trivium. Podia of the trivium, short, thick, with wide yellowish suckers. Cuvierian organ made of numerous white unbranched tubules.

Calcareous ring stout, radial plates notched both anteriorly and posteriorly and several times as broad as the interradials; interradial plates small, triangular, sharply projecting anteriorly ( Figure 2C View FIGURE 2 and 3E View FIGURE 3 ).

Ossicles. Body wall deposits as large and short, spiny rods; podia with rods similar to those of the body wall, sometimes longer and perforated due to the fusion of some short or long spines, thus forming spiny plates; tentacles with elongated, perforated rods of varying length, the perforations resulting from fusions of tips of few short spines. Dorsal and ventral body wall rods 10–12 µm long ( Figure 2D View FIGURE 2 and 3A View FIGURE 3 ); podial rods 13–16 µm ( Figure 2F View FIGURE 2 and 3C View FIGURE 3 ), end plates 150–180 µm in diameter ( Figure 2E View FIGURE 2 and 3B View FIGURE 3 ). Tentacle rods 110–150 µm ( Figure 2G View FIGURE 2 and 3D View FIGURE 3 ).

Distribution. Generally tropical-subtropical Indo-West Pacific species—recorded from the Red Sea ( Price 1982); Gulf of Aden, Djibouti ( Cherbonnier 1955); Persian Gulf ( Heding 1940); Iran Pourvali et al., 2014; Eisapour et al., 2022); Gulf of Oman, Muscat ( Price & Reid 1985), Bender Mtoni, Somalia ( Tortonese 1980); Zanzibar ( Ludwig, 1899 & Mitsikuri1912), Tanzania; Pangani ( Lampert 1896), Seychelles; Aldabra ( Sloan et al.,1979 & Clark 1984); Comores ( Cherbonnier 1988), Madagascar ( Clark & Rowe 1971), Mozambique; North and South Coast ( Kalk 1959), South Africa ( Lampert 1885, Theel 1886 & Deichmann 1948; Natal ( Thandar 1977, 1984, 2022).

Habitat. The specimens were taken from the intertidal zone, under rock, buried in sand.

Remarks. We compared our specimens with those described by Lampert (1885), Samyn et al., (2006), Pourvali et al., (2014) and the diagnosis of Thandar (2022). The colouration of our specimen was similar to that described by Samyn et al., (2006) in being dark brown dorsally and lighter brown ventrally with the podia and tentacles yellowish. The body wall rods of our specimens are also short, massive, thick rods and covered with short thorns as described in Lampert, (1885). Our specimens also correspond well with the diagnosis given by Thandar (2022). Most authors record 20 tentacles, but 18 tentacles are also observed by Eisapour et al., (2022). Except for variation in the size of the ossicles, those of our materials strongly resemble those described by Samyn et al., (2006) as stout rods with few irregularly arranged spines, body wall rods of 8–14 µm long, tentacle rods 100–150 µm long, podial rods 12–16 µm and end plates of a podium150–170 µm in diameter