ZOOTAXA ISSN 1175-5326 (print edition) ISSN 1175-5334 (online edition) Accepted by C. Mah: 21 Feb. 2024; published: 28 Mar. 2024 151 Zootaxa 5432 (2): 151–159 https://www.mapress.com/zt/ Copyright © 2024 Magnolia Press Article https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5432.2.1 http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:BC7C6D45-050F-4558-829D-3366FD93C16C Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-N.C. 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Actinopyga spinea Cherbonnier, 1980 (Holothuroidea: Holothuriida: Holothuriidae), new addition to the holothuroid fauna of Pakistan QADEER MOHAMMAD ALI 1,3 , IQRA SHAIKH 1,4 , AHMED THANDAR 2 & QURATULAN AHMED 1,5* 1 The Marine Reference Collection and Resource Centre, University of Karachi, Karachi, 75270 Pakistan 2 School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, P/Bagx 54001, Durban 4000, South Africa �thandara@ukzn.ac.za; https://orcid.org 0000-0002-7368-5560 3 � qmali@uok.edu.pk; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0499-0801 4 � iqrashahban@hotmail.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2482-1631 5 � quratulanahmed_ku@yahoo.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7597-2483 *Corresponding author Abstract We here in report on the first record of Actinopyga spinea from the intertidal zone from Balochistan, Pakistan in the northern Arabian Sea. Its taxonomic characters, habitat and distribution are described. Key words: Actinopyga, sea cucumber, new record, Makran coast, Balochistan, Northern Arabian Sea Introduction The order Holothuriida (Miller et al. 2017) is the second largest order of sea cucumbers, comprising two families: Holothuriidae Burmeister, 1837 and Mesothuriidae Smirnov, 2012 (accessed WoRMS 2024). The family Holothuriidae is the largest and includes 5 genera: Holothuria Linnaeus, 1767, Actinopyga Bronn, 1860, Bohadschia Jaeger, 1833, Labidodemas Selenka, 1867 and Pearsonothuria Levin in Levin, Kalinin and Stonik, 1984. Pearson (1914) believed that Actinopyga and Bohadschia are closely related to the genus Holothuria and this was confirmed by Miller et al. (2017) by molecular examination. Species of Actinopyga are found in shallow-waters, depth range (0–100m), of a wide circum-tropical belt of the Indo-Pacific region but they also occur in the Caribbean region of the West Atlantic Ocean. They are usually found in association with coral reefs (Samyn et al. 2006) and without exception, display five well developed anal teeth which are sometimes concealed within the anus. The first consolidated compilation of the holothuroid fauna of Pakistan and West India is that of Clark & Rowe (1971),who listed 12 species, but did not specify which came from Pakistan and which from W. India. Subsequently there were sporadic additions to the fauna by mostly Pakistani workers (see Table below). Thus only 25 species have been reported from Pakistan. This current record of Actinopyga spinea increases the number of known species to 26. Only 11 species belonging to the family Holothuriidae have previously been recorded from Pakistan. Thus, of all the species of Actinopyga known to date only Actinopyga mauritiana was previously reported from Pakistan. To this we now add A.spinea Cherbonnier, 1980, here described from three specimens recently collected from the Makran coast, North Arabian Sea (Figure 1). This paper records the morphology, habitat and distribution of this rarely found species with some new information. Materials and Methods Three specimens of A. spinea were collected fromthe intertidal zone—two from Gariyan beach, and one from Bandari beach, Makran coast, Balochistan, Pakistan. The collected specimens were initially fixed in 5% formalin