Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938

O’Loughlin, P. Mark, Barmos, Shari & VandenSpiegel, Didier, 2012, The phyllophorid sea cucumbers of southern Australia (Echinodermata: Holothuroidea: Dendrochirotida: Phyllophoridae), Memoirs of Museum Victoria 69, pp. 269-308 : 272

Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938

Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938: 494–495 .—H. L. Clark 1946:

411.— Heding and Panning, 1954:173–175.

Diagnosis. Dendrochirote holothuroids with 20 tentacles, 5 pairs large, 5 pairs small; tube feet around body, not radial, sometimes concentrated ventrally and scattered dorsally; calcareous ring stout with paired short tapered posterior composite prolongations arising from radial (early development) or jointly from radial and inter-radial plates (later development); mid-body wall of adults lacking ossicles; mid-body wall of juveniles with tables, spires with 4 pillars; tube feet with endplates and endplate supporting ossicles, sometimes with rosettes and small plates.

Type species. Phyllophorus vestiens Joshua, 1914 (original designation).

Other species. Lipotrapeza ambigua Cherbonnier, 1988 ( Madagascar); L. capilla Cherbonnier, 1958 (Sierra-Leone); L. eichleri O’Loughlin sp. nov. (SE Australia); L. incurva Cherbonnier, 1988 ( Madagascar); L. japonica Heding and Panning, 1954 ( Japan); L. litusi O’Loughlin sp. nov. (SW Australia).

Remarks. We make Lipotrapeza ventripes ( Joshua and Creed, 1915) a subjective junior synonym of Phyllostauros vercoi ( Joshua and Creed, 1915) (see below). Cherbonnier 1988 referred five small specimens (up to 20 mm long) from Madagascar to Lipotrapeza ventripes ( Joshua and Creed, 1915) . This referral is discussed under Lipotrapeza vestiens (below).

Lipotrapeza ambigua Cherbonnier, 1988 , erected for 12 specimens from Madagascar, is described as having 10 large outer tentacles and two inner circles of five small ones, a calcareous ring with paired composite radial posterior prolongations and composite inter-radial posterior prolongations, and some tables in the adult anal body wall. We judge that the species does not fit the diagnostic characters of Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938 .

Lipotrapeza capilla Cherbonnier, 1958 , erected for two specimens from Sierra-Leone, is described as having a tentacle arrangement of 15 outer tentacles comprising five pairs of large with a very small tentacle between each pair, and five inner tentacles. There are rosette and plate ossicles in the mid-body wall, and long paired composite posterior radial elongation of the calcareous ring. We judge that the species does not fit the diagnostic characters of Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938 .

Lipotrapeza incurva Cherbonnier, 1988 , erected for eight specimens from Madagascar, is described as having 10 large outer tentacles and 10 very small ones in two inner circles. On this character we judge that the species does not fit the diagnostic characters of Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938 , although for most characters it does.

We also query the inclusion of the northern Lipotrapeza japonica Heding and Panning, 1954 , specifically for the presence of three series of tentacles (10 + 5 + 5) and the form of the calcareous ring with discrete paired posterior radial prolongations (as illustrated by Heding and Panning 1954).

The current referrals of species to Lipotrapeza H. L. Clark, 1938 suggest to us that from a morphological viewpoint the genus is currently polyphyletic and requiring review.