NO. 9 MARINE INVERTEBRATES, ALASKA — MacGINITIE 127 



Phylum ECHIUROIDEA 



Two species of echiuroid worms were collected. One of the most 

 abundant of the mud-dwelling animals at Point Barrow is Echiurus 

 echiurus alaskaniis Fisher, but it lives so far beneath the surface in 

 such stiff mud that only small specimens were brought up by the 

 dredge, and then only rarely. However, during the summers of 1949 

 and 1950 hundreds of these worms were washed out of their burrows 

 and thrown ashore during storms. About half of these storm-tossed 

 creatures were minus the proboscis. Specimens with short proboscides 

 in the process of regeneration were common. A scale worm, Antinoe 

 sarsi Kinberg, undoubtedly commensal with Echiurus, was also 

 washed ashore in numbers. 



Spawning time was not determined for this animal. Males col- 

 lected on October 16, 1949, had sperm in the storage sacs and females 

 had eggs within the body cavity. These eggs, which were white, gran- 

 ular, and spherical, were 175 microns in diameter. 



Whether prompted by hunger or by the urge to add variety to their 

 diet, or perhaps by both, the Eskimos seldom overlook an opportunity 

 to obtain food. Chester Lampe, one of the Eskimo employes at the 

 Arctic Research Laboratory, told the writer that the older Eskimos 

 used to eat any Echiurus that washed ashore. He said they would 

 "cut off the head" and eat the remainder of the animal. What they 

 actually did was to cut off the anal end, which is encircled by a double 

 row of setae; they mistook the proboscis for a tail. 



Hamingia arctica Koren and Danielssen, a bright deep-green 

 echiuroid with a bifurcated proboscis, was found only on the beach 

 following storms and less than 10 specimens were collected. One 

 specimen with a body 75 mm. long had a proboscis 44 mm. long; 

 the largest, with a body 96 mm. long and 12.2 mm. in diameter, had 

 lost its proboscis. 



The body wall of a female collected on August 10, 1950, had been 

 torn so that an egg sac, also torn, was extruded and the eggs were 

 visible. These eggs, which were bright coral, were 900 microns in 

 diameter — enormous for an echiuroid. They appeared to be ferti- 

 lized, perhaps by some other specimens that were in the pan. 



Although this species appears to have a wide distribution it has 

 been taken only sparingly and there were no specimens of it in the 

 U. S. National Museum. It has been collected in East Greenland, 

 Spitsbergen, the Murman Sea, and east to the Barents Sea, Iceland, 

 and the west coast of Norway. It was taken in the Antarctic by the 

 Discovery Expedition and in the South Shetlands at a depth of 404.5 



