Pseudostichopus peripatus

Pseudostichopus peripatus (Sluiter, 1901) Reports for the Azores:

non Pseudostichopus occultatus Marenzeller, 1893 — $ Hérouard 1902: 14–15, pl. 2, figs. 4–14 [misidentification]; Nobre 1938: 156–157 [based on Hérouard 1902]; García-Diez et al. 2005: 51 [based on Hérouard 1902];

Pseudostichopus marenzelleri $ Hérouard, 1923: 25; Mortensen 1927a: 387;

Pseudostichopus lapidus $ Hérouard, 1923: 26–28, pl. 4, fig. 5; Mortensen 1927a: 387;

Meseres peripatus Sluiter— $ O’Loughlin 2002: 307–309, fig. 2f;

Pseudostichopus peripatus (Sluiter, 1901) — $ O’Loughlin & Ahearn 2005: 174–175, figs. 1f, 10f–h, 11i–l, 12g–h; Gebruk et al. 2014: 168–169.

Type locality: Indonesia.

See: O’Loughlin (2002); O’Loughlin & Ahearn (2005); Rogacheva et al. (2013: 593, fig. 18D).

Occurrence: deep-water cosmopolitan, in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, in the West Atlantic from Caribbean north to off Massachusetts, eastwards from Greenland south to the Azores area (O’Loughlin 2002, O’Loughlin & Ahearn 2005).

Habitat: soft sediments; covers itself with Globigerine foraminifera (Hérouard 1923).

Depth: 134– 5,453 m (O’Loughlin & Ahearn 2005); AZO: (?2,871) 4,020 –4,400 m (Hérouard 1923).

Remarks: Hérouard (1902) firstly identified Princesse Alice material collected in Azorean waters as Pseudostichopus occultatus. In a later report, Hérouard (1923) realized that the specimens belonged to two new different species, which he described as P. lapidus and P. marenzelleri. O’Loughlin (2002) placed both species in the synonymy of P. peripatus. However, O’Loughlin (2002) examined a specimen of P. marenzelleri collected within Azores waters (36°58’N, 26°20’W, 2,871 –2,917 m,?unreported) present in the collection of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris) and found significant differences to a point to consider its determination as P. peripatus as uncertain. Regardless, later O’Loughlin & Ahearn (2005) confirmed the synonymy of both P. marenzelleri and P. lapidus with P. peripatus .