(Montagu, 1815)

Description
Body elongate, up to 300 mm in length; coloured red or brown, the ventral side is lighter.

Tentacles
There are usually 12 tentacles, with 2 pairs of lateral digits. The outer digits are the largest; the terminal digit is rudimentary or absent. The inside of the tentacles bears 2 longitudinal series of small round sensory organs (L. digitata tentacles).

Tube-feet
Tube-feet are absent.

Skin
The calcareous deposits in the skin consist of anchors and anchor plates. The anchors about 0.3-0.35 mm long, with much diverging and serrate arms. Sometimes there are very large anchors, lying in a row in each dorso-lateral interradius; their arms are smooth and are much less diverging than in the smaller anchors. The anchor plates are more or less regular, racquet-shaped, with a narrow handle and usually 4 larger, central holes; the holes are smooth and are smaller in the anterior end of the body (L. digitata spicules).

Habitat
This species lives in muddy-sandy bottoms, from lower shore down to about 70 m.

Distribution
In the North Sea this species is known from the Shetland Islands. Elsewhere it is distributed on the British and French Atlantic coasts and the Mediterranean.

Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Echinodermata
Class Holothurioidae
Order Apoda
Family Synaptidae
Genus Labidoplax
Species digitata

Status in World Register of Marine Species

Accepted name: Labidoplax digitata (Montagu, 1815)

Scientific synonyms and common names

Synapta digitata Montagu, 1815

Mortensen, T.H., 1927. Handbook of the Echinoderms of the British Isles. Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press: 471 pp.

Moyse, J. & P.A. Tyler, 1990. Echinodermata. In: P.J. Hayward & J.S. Ryland (eds): The Marine Fauna of the British Isles and North- West Europe, Volume 2, Molluscs to Chordates. Clarendon Press, Oxford: 839-871.

Picton, B.E., 1993. A field guide to the shallow-water Echinoderms of the British Isles. Immel Publishing: 96 pp.

You can continue searching for Labidoplax digitata on one of these Web sites:

Fauna Europaea (animals) | IOPI (plants) | NCBI (genetic)

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