Echinoderms of Colombia

Deep-sea holothurians (Echinodermata, Holothuroidea) from the Colombian Southern Caribbean Sea

“…The North Atlantic is one of the best-explored regions of the deep ocean; about 55 holothurian species are known (Rogacheva et al 2013). In Latin American countries, including the Caribbean Sea and the South Atlantic, fewer studies at depths below 1,000 m have reported a total of 34 sea cucumber species, 16 of which are present in the Colombian Caribbean (Pérez-Ruzafa et al 2013;Benavides-Serrato et al 2013). In the Gulf of Mexico, the most complete inventory of echinoderms catalogued 23 deep-sea cucumber species (Pawson et al 2009); recently, approximately 10 holothurian species were recorded by the first time in the Gulf of Mexico (Pawson et al 2015).…”

Echinoderms of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve: State of Knowledge and New Findings

“…Based on this knowledge it will be possible to define priority research topics for the conservation of marine biodiversity in this strategically located reserve for the Caribbean Sea. Currently, only the 53% of the species previously registered in the Colombian Caribbean (Benavides-Serrato et al, 2013), and 27% of the species from the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico (Alvarado-Barrientos and Solís-Marín, 2013) are recorded in the SFBR.…”

First record of Echinothrix calamaris (Echinoidea: Diadematidae) in the Colombian Pacific

“…There are 79 sea-urchin species reported so far in Colombia (Benavides-Serrato et al 2013;Muñoz and Londoño-Cruz 2016), of which 63.3% are found in the Caribbean and 36.7% in the Pacific. The family Diadematidae, a large and important family of sea-urchins, has only three representatives in the Pacific coast of Colombia [Astropyga pulvinata (Lamarck, 1816), Centrostephanus coronatus (Verrill, 1867) and Diadema mexicanum A. Agassiz, 1863].…”