Pannychia Théel, 1882

O’Loughlin, P. Mark, Mackenzie, Melanie & VandenSpiegel, Didier, 2013, New sea cucumber species from the seamounts on the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Aspidochirotida, Elasipodida, Dendrochirotida), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 70, pp. 37-50 : 40

Pannychia Théel, 1882

Pannychia Théel, 1882: 88 .— Fisher, 1907: 709.— Mitsukuri, 1912:

207.— Pawson, 1965: 22.— Pawson, 1970: 53.— Hansen, 1975: 72. Laetmophasma Ludwig, 1893: 109 .— Ludwig, 1894: 85.

Diagnosis (emended from Théel, 1882, and Hansen, 1975). Mouth subventral, lacking circumoral papillae, tentacles about 20, non-retractile; anus dorsoposterior; numerous slender papillae of variable length over the dorsal and lateral body; lateral ventral ambulacra with tube feet in single series, midventral ambulacrum with smaller tube feet; body wall and papillae with numerous wheel ossicles and significantly smaller, slightly concave round to oval plate ossicles; wheels with teeth between larger outer spokes and with fewer small hub spokes, hub covered by a membrane; small plates with about 15 perforations, including 2 large and 2 smaller central ones.

Type species. Pannychia moseleyi Théel, 1882 (monotypy) (Tasman Sea ) .

Synonyms (by Hansen, 1975): Laetmophasma fecundum Ludwig, 1893 ; P. moseleyi mollis Savel’eva, 1933; P. moseleyi var. henrici Ludwig, 1894 ; P. moseleyi vigulifera Ohshima, 1915 ; P. multiradiata Sluiter, 1901 ; P. pallida Fisher, 1907 .

Other included species. Pannychia taylorae O’Loughlin sp. nov. (below).

Remarks. Hansen (1975) judged that specimens of P. moseleyi Théel, 1882 showed a wide range of variations and as a consequence synonymized six species and varieties with P. moseleyi . In collaboration with Niki Davey (NIWA) we examined numerous specimens from the eastern Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Admiralty Seamount regions and found some consistent morphological differences that are congruent with molecular phylogenetic data. Some consistent morphological characters for species that we observed are colour, numbers of tube feet, maximum wheel size,and numbers of large outer and small inner spokes in the wheels. Based on morphological and phylogenetic data we distinguish P. moseleyi and two additional species of Pannychia from these regions (Davey et al., in preparation). We anticipate that molecular data will invite a review of the numerous current synonymies.