• Main Authors: Gross Morphology, Valery S. Levinl, Elena N. Gudimova
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Barents Sea; British Columbia; Canada; Cucumaria frondosa; Aleutian Islands
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.602.2098; http://www.spc.int/DigitalLibrary/Doc/FAME/InfoBull/BDM/13/BDM13_22_Levin.pdf

Morphological features, distribution, ecology and some of the chemical characters of Cucumaria frondosa and C. japonica are described. The two species are well distinguished by the spicule-shaped body wall, the structure of the introvert, tentacles and ambulacral podia, the colour of internal organs, the size of ova and the chemical structure of triterpene glycosides. The data points to the taxonomical independence of these species. Previous opinion that C. japonica is a subspecies of C. frondosa is not supported. mens in total); holothurians preliminarily identi-fied as C. frondosa japonica from the west coast of Canada and the Aleutian Islands (the Royal Museum of British Columbia, Victoria, Canada – 12 specimens); and original collection from the Barents Sea (mainly from the Kanin area and the Seven Islands – several hundred specimens). 3. Comparison of Cucumaria frondosa and C. japonica