Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2009
Apart from isolated records of species of the genus Protankyra and a brief reference to a ‘Leptosynapta sp.’ from 1985 to 2360 m depth from the northern Bay of Biscay (Sibuet, 1977), the holothurian family Synaptidae is unknown in the deep sea. Yet this family of small, deposit-feeding forms are often numerous in soft sediments of shallow water. The present paper describes two previously unknown species of synaptid discovered from recent benthic sampling in the Rockall Trough (N.E. Atlantic). These species belong to the genus Labidoplax, four other species of which have been described from coastal areas in the north eastern Atlantic.