The Shallow water Holothurians of Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire

The holothurians from the southern end of the Caribbean area are incompletely known. CLARK (1919) discussed a few specimens taken from Tobago, British West Indies, and DEICHMANN (1926) prepared a report on the holothurians from the Barbados-Antigua Expedition. ADA TEN BROEKE (1927) listed 7 holothurians from Curaçao, collected by C. J. VAN DER HORST. This list constituted the first mention of holothurians from the area. CLARK (1933) listed one additional specimen in his “Handbook of the Littoral Echinoderms of Porto Rico and the Other West Indian Islands”. ENGEL (1939), included three additional sea cucumbers in his report on the echinoderms which were gathered by P. WAGENAAR HUMMELINCK. Neither ENGEL (1939) nor TEN BROEKE (1927) described their specimens. I have found three additional species new to the fauna of the above islands. Two of these specimens, Thyoneria cognata and Trachythonidium occidentale are the first Dendrochirota to be reported from the Netherlands Antilles. After this report has been completed, ELISABETH DEICHMANN (1963) produced a short survey of the ‘Shallow water Holothurians known from the Caribbean Waters’ in which several new data are to be found gathered from material which was collected by WAGENAAR HUMMELINCK in 1948/49 and 1955.