Rhopalodina lageniformis
ORDER
Dactylochirotida
FAMILY
Rhopalidinidae
TAXONOMY
Rhopalodina lageniformis Gray, 1853, Congo.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
None known.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Unusual flask-shaped holothuroid to 4 in (10 cm) long. Body covered in plates. Mouth and anus adjacent atop a slender stalk above a globose body. Fifteen to 25 digitate tentacles in two concentric whorls. The doubled-over body gives the appearance of 10 radii along the body, unlike the canonical five of other echinoderms. The radii do not cross the ventral pole of the body. Ossicles are small knobby towers. Cruciform plates are present at the ventral pole. Tube foot plates have an elongate roughened end.
DISTRIBUTION
Atlantic Ocean along western coast of Africa from Senegal to Cabinda.
HABITAT
Coastal mud bottoms at 7–20 ft (2–6 m) depth.
BEHAVIOR
Remains burrowed in mud with only its mouth and anus exposed.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Nothing is known. The tentacle structure suggests this sea cucumber is a deposit feeder.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Nothing is known.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Not listed by the IUCN or under the CITES convention.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
None known.
