HOLOTHTJRIOIDEA OF THE INDIAN OCEAN. 49 NOTES ON THE HOLOTHURIOIDEA OF THE INDIAN OCEAN. By Joseph Pearson. (With ten Plates.) 1.— THE GENUS HOLOTHURIA. THE following notes on the littoral Holothurioidea of the Indian Ocean have been brought together during the preparation of a monograph on the subject. Zoogeographically the Indian Ocean cannot be separated from the tropical portion of the Pacific, since with few exceptions the species of littoral Holothurians of this region have a wide distribution extending from the east coast of Africa to the eastern portion of the Pacific. The majority of the Holothurians of Ceylon, for instance, occur throughout the tropical waters of the Indo-Pacific region, and are found on the east coast of Africa from Suez to the Cape of Good Hope, the coast of Asia from the northern end of the Red Sea to the islands of Japan, the East Indies, the north coast of Australia, the Pacific Islands, and in some cases the western coast of South America. On the grounds of not having sufficient material from the Pacific Ocean, and also in order to confine the work within reasonable Hmits, it has been decided to include only those Holothurians found in the waters which lie between latitudes 30° N. and 30° S. and longitudes 30° E. and 130° E. The proposed monograph will be based i;pon collections examined and described by the present writer during the past few years. I refer to the collections made by Professor Herdman, F.R.S., in Ceylon, by Messrs. Simpson and Rudmose Brown in the Mergui Archipelago, by Mi'. Simpson in Portuguese East Africa, and to the collection of Holothurians in the Colombo Museum. To these have been added the Holothurians sent by Professor Stanley Gardiner, F.R.S., H ~ 6(5)13
BioStor
