Pawsonia saxicola
species of echinoderm
Pawsonia saxicola, the sea gherkin, is a species of sea cucumber in the family Cucumariidae. It is found in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
Description
Pawsonia saxicola has a solid, cylindrical body and can grow to a length of 150 mm (6 in). The mouth is at the anterior end and is surrounded by a circle of ten, black and white, mottled, branching, tentacles used for feeding, up to 100 mm (4 in) long. The cuticle of the body is smooth with five longitudinal rows of tube feet. The ventral rows are double and clearly visible, while the dorsal rows are largely replaced by low button-shaped protuberances, except near the mouth. The cuticle contains calcareous spicules which are star-shaped. This sea cucumber may be confused with Aslia lefevrei. Both live in crevices with their dark-coloured tentacles projecting; P. saxicola is white, but may darken somewhat when exposed to light, while Aslia lefevrei is brown.
Distribution and habitat
This sea cucumber is native to the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pawsonia saxicola” is species of echinoderm. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pawsonia, saxicola and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 1, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2225950. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pawsonia saxicola” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.