Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

Echinoderms are an ancient marine form of animals extending back to at least the Cambrian period. These groups include; sea stars (called starfishes), brittle stars, sea Cucumbers, sea urchins, and sea lilies. The general name is derived from their external spines. Echinoderms usually have five arms and have different color patterns; yellow, red, and brown. Echinoderms live in rocky reef of Oceans and tropical marines for example costal of Persian Gulf in Southern of Iran. Researches on the echinoderms are inadequate in Southern of Iran. So, morphology, life cycle, population structures and other biological characters of them are unclear and our data about these animals is rare. Hence, this project is performed for study and compared of some external structure of two Echinoderms class from costal of Qeshm Island. In this project specimens were collected by quadrate in measure of 2�2 m from 3 different areas (infera-littoral, mid-littoral, and supra-littoral). Then specimens fixed in 4% Formalin solution and transported to laboratory. Some external structure including spins shape, size and shapes of mouth jaws, the position of madreporite, were compared in all specimens. Results showed that there are high variety in shape and number of mouth jaws, madreporite position, also number of ventral spines in theses specimens. The general compare of surface spins show that cross section of them have different in shape for example rounded, circular, etc.

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