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The Bathyal Holothurians of the New Zealand Region

Order Apodida Brandt, 1835

Order Apodida Brandt, 1835

Diagnosis: Tentacles simple, digitate or pinnate, retractor muscles, tubefeet and respiratory trees absent. Body vermiform. Calcareous deposits include anchors, anchor plates, wheels and sigmoid rods; sometimes absent.

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Remarks: Although the Order Apodida is of cosmopolitan distribution, very few species are found in bathyal depths, and the great majority are littoral forms.

Family Synaptidae Burmeister, 1837

Diagnosis: Calcareous deposits in the form of anchors or anchor plates. Tentacle stalk cylindrical or terete, not becoming widened distally, either with digits along each side for most of its length (pinnate), or with only one or two digits along each side near the tip (digitate).

Remarks: This widespread family is mostly of shallow-water distribution, but some species of the genus Protankyra are known from great depths. In the New Zealand region two species of Protankyra are known, of which one, P. rigida Pawson, has been collected from the bathyal zone.

Protankyra Ostergren, 1898

Protankyra rigida Pawson

Protankyra rigida Pawson, 1965b, p. 75, Text-fig. 1, figs. 1–3.

Material Examined: N.Z.O.I. Stn. C166, 1 specimen.

Remarks: This species had been described and discussed elsewhere (Pawson, 1965b).

Distribution : The single known specimen was collected from off Cape Egmont, New Zealand, at a depth of 180–270 metres.