Thyone kerkosa O'Loughlin 2012, sp. nov.
Creators: name: O'Loughlin, P. Mark
name: Barmos, Shari
name: VandenSpiegel, Didier
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2012
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Echinodermata
Holothuroidea
Dendrochirotida
Phyllophoridae
Thyone
Thyone kerkosa

description: Thyone kerkosa O’Loughlin sp. nov.   
Figures 17d, 20  
 Material examined. Holotype. Southern Australia, Recherche Archipelago, Sandy Hook Island, 34º02'S 122º00'E, Scallop Trawl Survey 1986, L.F.B.E. Triumph, D. Richards et al., 26 July 1986, WAM Z31838 (body with tentacles and ring eviscerated and lost).   
 Diagnosis. Body 45 mm long (preserved), up to 15 mm diameter, cylindrical, tapered to rounded oral and anal ends, body wall soft, thick; external anal scales not detected; tentacles lost; complete close cover of small tube feet, diameter 0.3 mm; calcareous ring lost.   
 Body wall with table ossicles only, tables range greatly in form and inter-grade; numerous small tables with discs rounded rectangular with smooth lobed margins, smallest with typically 8 perforations, discs 48–56 µ m long, spires with 2 pillars, short blunt pointed spines apically, spires 16 µ m long; medium-sized tables with elongate oval discs, sometimes bi-lobed, up to about 40 small perforations, no perforations between disc margin and 2 large central perforations adjacent to spire, discs up to 144 µ m long, spires with 2 pillars, up to 3 cross-connections, spires up to 64 µ m long; large tables with irregular narrow tapered discs, 2 large central perforations, up to about 30 small perforations, ends of disc sometimes extended into solid nonperforate ‘tail’, sometimes solid digitiform side branches off discs, discs and tails up to 124 µ m long, spires with 2 pillars, solid, up to 3 small perforations, 2 long laterally extended apical points together as wide as disc length, pillars 48 µ m long; tube feet with endplates and table support ossicles; endplates up to 120 µ m diameter; tables with curved discs; anal ossicles tables, single and multi-layered scales.   
 Colour (preserved). Body pale brown.   
 Distribution. SW Australia, Recherche Archipelago.   
 Etymology. Named from the Greek kerkos (tail), with reference to the elongate tail-like extensions on some narrow table discs and some table spires apically.   
 Remarks. We are conscious of the limited morphological data available for the single damaged specimen on which we are erecting Thyone kerkosa O’Loughlin sp. nov. But we judge that it is important to establish this distinctive species in a work that is attempting a comprehensive treatment of southern Australian phyllophorid species. We are confident that the species belongs to genus Thyone Oken because of the distribution and size of tube feet, and similarity of the tables to those of another new Thyone species from the Upper Spencer Gulf that has a characteristic Thyone ring and tentacles (see below). Thyone kerkosa is distinguished from other southern Australian Thyone species in the key (above).
description: Published as part of O'Loughlin, P. Mark, Barmos, Shari & VandenSpiegel, Didier, 2012, The phyllophorid sea cucumbers of southern Australia (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Dendrochirotida: Phyllophoridae), pp. 269-308 in Memoirs of Museum Victoria 69 on page 300, DOI: 10.24199/j.mmv.2012.69.05, http://zenodo.org/record/12212378