Sea cucumbers of the genus Stichopus Brandt, 1835 (Holothuroidea, Stichopodidae) in Straits of Malacca with description of a new species

Sau Pinn Woo; Zulfigar Yasin; Shau Hwai Tan; Hiroshi Kajihara; Toshihiko Fujita

doi:10.3897/zookeys.545.6415

Sea cucumbers of the genus Stichopus Brandt, 1835 (Holothuroidea, Stichopodidae) in Straits of Malacca with description of a new species

Zookeys. 2015 Dec 14:(545):1-26. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.545.6415. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Sau Pinn Woo¹, Zulfigar Yasin², Shau Hwai Tan³, Hiroshi Kajihara¹, Toshihiko Fujita⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Natural History Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 10 Nishi 8, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan.
² Institute of Oceanography and Environment, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia.
³ Marine Science Laboratory, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia.
⁴ Department of Zoology, National Museum of Nature and Science, Amakubo 4-1-1, Tsukuba 305-0005, Ibaraki, Japan.

Abstract

Five sea cucumber species including one new species of the genus Stichopus are reported from the shallow coral reefs of Straits of Malacca. The new species Stichopus fusiformiossa has unusual fusiform spicules in the tentacles, which are not found in the other species of the genus. Pseudo-tables and large perforated plates are newly recorded for Stichopus hermanni Semper, 1868 and Stichopus vastus Sluiter, 1887, respectively.

Keywords: Echinodermata; Malaysia; Stichopus; sea cucumbers; shallow reef; spicules; taxonomy.