Description of a new species from Australia, belonging to the subgenus Selenkothuria (Holothuria, Aspidochirotida). A dichotomous key of the thirteen valid species included in the subgenus is also given. The species H. perrieri Thandar, 1977 and H. spinea Cherbonnier, 1988 are considered as non valid.

1. Stress-relaxation tests and creep tests were performed on the bodywall dermis of two sea cucumbers, Actinopyga echinites (Jager) and Holothuria leucospilota Brandt. 2. These viscoelastic connective tissues had mechanical properties which agreed well with those of a four-element mechanical model composed of two Maxwell elements connected in parallel. 3. The elastic stiffness of the dermis of ...

More than 100 triterpene glycosides (saponins) have been characterized in holothuroids in the past several decades. In particular, Holothuria forskali contains 26 saponins in its Cuvierian tubules and 12 in its body wall. This high diversity could be linked to a chemical defense mechanism, the most commonly accepted biological role for these secondary metabolites. We performed an integrated stu...

The glycan moiety of ganglioside HPG-7, isolated from the sea cucumber (Holothuria pervicax), was synthesized for the first time. The characteristic substructure, a trisialic acid sequence embedded in the glycan, was deliberately constructed by utilizing suitably differentiated sialyl units for various synthetic purposes. Finally, a pentasaccharide was successfully delivered as the hexyl glycos...

The experiment recorded in this note was undertaken in 1917, with a view to testing the notion (Crozier, 1914-15) that the fluorescent, greenish yellow, integumentary pigment characteristic of some members of the genus ttolothuria is concerned with their photic sensitivity. A functional connection of this sort was suspected because the presence and relative amount of the pigment seemed to be co...

to identify the species of sea cucumbers belong to holothuroidea in the intertidal zones of chabahar bay, field studies were conducted during one year from november 2008 to september 2009. the area of study was located at the farthest end of southeast of iran in province of sistan and balouchestan between 25°16́́ 61̋ and 25°22́ 47 ̋ north, and between 60°39́ 90 ̋ and 60°24́ 38 ̋ east. 5 sampling station...