Neoamphicyclus materiae O’Loughlin

O'Loughlin, P. Mark, Eichler, John, Altoff, Leon, Falconer, Audrey, Mackenzie, Melanie, Whitfield, Emily & Rowley, Chris, 2009, Observations of reproductive strategies for some dendrochirotid holothuroids (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Dendrochirotida), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 66 (2), pp. 215-220 : 217

Brood auto-ingestion by Neoamphicyclus materiae O’Loughlin

A 20 mm long female Neoamphicyclus materiae O’Loughlin, 2007 from Kitty Miller Bay on the coast of Victoria, collected on 25 October 1987, has 528 small coelomic brood juveniles (fig. 2d; NMV F58592). A 30 mm long female from Cape Otway on the coast of Victoria, collected on 29 December 1985, has one large coelomic brood juvenile (fig. 2d; NMV F76371). Typically this species has small coelomic brood juveniles in October (see Materia et al. 1991), and one or a few large coelomic juveniles are present in December or January ( NMV F58606; F58720; fig. 2e). These observations indicate that intra-coelomic brood auto-ingestion occurs in Neoamphicyclus materiae .

Byrne (1996) reported intragonadal cannibalism in the small simultaneous hermaphrodite asterinids Parvulastra vivipara (Dartnall, 1969) and Parvulastra parvivipara (Keough and Dartnall, 1978) from southern Australia. This is the first report of intra-coelomic cannibalism in a holothuroid species.