Scotoplanes Théel, 1882

Mackenzie, Melanie, Davey, Niki, Burghardt, Ingo & Haines, Margaret L., 2024, A report of sea cucumbers collected on the first dedicated deep-sea biological survey of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories around Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea), Memoirs of Museum Victoria (Mem. Mus. Vic.) 83, pp. 207-316 : 222

Genus Scotoplanes Théel, 1882

Diagnosis (following Hansen, 1975). Dorsal papillae separated into one pair of large anterior papillae, and one large and one small pair placed close together on the middle or posterior part of the body. Tentacle discs with a few, large papillae on the surface and a knobbed margin divided into a pair of large, aboral, retractile lobes. Ossicles consisting of rods and Cs. Calcareous ring consisting of five isolated pieces, each with four pairs of arms.

Remarks. Scotoplanes are a charismatic genera of sea cucumber and one of the groups often referred to as sea pigs. They have been observed to aggregate in large densities, particularly around food sources such as whale fall ( Gutt and Piepenburg, 1991) and have also been known to host parasitic or hitchhiking invertebrates ( Barry et al., 2017). Of the five currently accepted species of Scotoplanes worldwide, only S. globosa has been previously recorded for Australia (WoRMS and ALA January 2024). A single lot of S. globosa was recorded from the IOT voyages at 1019–1023 m.