2017 Volume 12 Issue 2 Pages 83-94
Two new taeniogyrinid sea cucumbers collected in the intertidal zone of southern Japan, Taeniogyrus verruculosus sp. nov. and Scoliorhapis sesokoensis sp. nov. are described. Both species possess a small body size (approximately 30–40 mm), light body color (translucent white in preserved specimens), ten tentacles, and numerous verrucous surfaces on the body, within which small (mostly less than 70 µm in length) sigmoid-hook ossicles are present. The two new species have a very similar external appearance to each other, however they do differ in the number of tentacle digits: T. verruculosus possesses up to eight digits, whereas S. sesokoensis possesses up to six. In both species, wheel papillae are not present. T. verruculosus possesses only a few small (mostly less than 30 µm in diameter) wheel ossicles in the anterior dorsal skin, which are not present in S. sesokoensis. Additionally, the DNA barcode sequences of two new species were determined and are available in the DDBJ/NCBI/GenBank databases under the accession numbers.
