September-December, 2012 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 31 Nos. 3-4 
found in shallow, high energy habitats, either at the mouths of bays or in subtidal sandy beaehes, 
whereas D. terminalis is also usually eolleeted in sandy habitats but in at least 20m of water, 
outside the area of stronger wave aetion. This differenee in habitat preferenee is evident in their 
morphology, with D. excentricus have a thieker more robust test and spines and D. terminalis 
having a thinner test and more delieate spines. Due to its delieate nature and pale eoloration, D. 
terminalis was initially thought to be a “dead” test of D. excentricus by some So Cal taxonomists, 
but luekily work by Dr. Mooi eleared up the eonfusion. See Mooi 1997 for a thorough diseussion 
of Dendraster. 
Holothuroids were the next Class to be diseussed. Megan briefly eovered protoeols for dealing 
with juveniles. An animal needs to be at least 1 em in order for an ossiele mount to be effeetive 
in determining speeies level identifleation. In smaller animals the ealeareous ring ean be used for 
Family level ID’s assuming the animal is large enough for a proper disseetion. If the animal is too 
small for sueeessful disseetion and/or ossiele mounts, assuming it is a “tube foof ’ variety, an ID 
of Dendroehirotida is used. 
Next was the primary eonundrum faeing SCB eehinoderm taxonomists - Parastichopus spp. 
During previous surveys a few unusual looking Parastichopus had eome to the attention of the 
LACSD taxonomists, and one was given the provisional speeies name of Parastichopus sp A. 
Going in to the B’08 projeet, held taxonomists were on the look out for 4 speeies in the genus 
Parastichopus - luekothele, californicus, parvimensis and sp A. Prior to B’08 trawls, the speeies 
were reviewed at a SCAMIT meeting and everyone thought they had a handle on it. However, 
The problem: Natural 
variability within Parastichopus 
californicus, Or...??? 
upon review of B’08 voueher speeimens of P. californicus and P. sp A from various ageneies, 
it was soon evident that a greater problem was present than previously thought. The variety 
amongst the animals being identifled as P. californicus and P. sp A was soon obvious. 
Megan took some time eomparing ossiele mounts from different vouehers for both speeies, and 
eame to no eonelusion other than “we have a problem”. She strongly feels that there is possibly 
more than one undeseribed speeies of Parastichopus existing in the SCB and more work needs 
to be done. However, it is a projeet for a grad student more so than a POTW monitoring program 
taxonomist with limited resourees and time. Not only do morphometries and ossiele morphology 
need to be studied more thoroughly, but DNA work would also be eondueive to teasing out an 
answer eoneeming this mystery. 
She asked her fellow taxonomists at the meeting for their thoughts and opinions and was met 
mostly with resounding silenee. 
To eontinue in the theme of eonfounding holothuroids, Megan then went on to review the three 
speeies of “unknown Phyllophorids” from the B’08 projeet; Phyllophoridae sp SD2, SD3, and 
Publication Date: 6 July 2016 
