• Journal of Species Research
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.188-193
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• 2022

Araeosoma owstoni Mortensen, 1904, a newly recorded sea urchin, was collected from the Korea Strait by trawling during a research expedition in April 2017. The specimen was damaged and was severely peeled off on the aboral side during trawling. However, a test and the surface of the oral side of the sample were well preserved, allowing us to successfully identify it. The species was distinguished by the large and flexible test, the tiny apical section, and the interambulacra width which is twice of the ambulacra. Pedicellaria tridentate and triphyllous were presents, but tetradactyle pedicellaria was absent due to severe peeling on the aboral side. Moreover, a length of 1,212 bp sequence from mitochondrial COI gene was obtained and this sequence covered the general DNA barcoding region. The mean of interspecific divergence within A. owstoni from Korea and other eight species of Araeosoma from the GenBank was 6.8%. This value indicated that our species was clearly distinguishable from the others. Thus, the first Araeosoma species occurring in South Korea is presented in this study.