ABSTRACT
For six to eight months, bridging Autumn and Spring on the Irish west coast, the holothuroid Neopentadactyla mixta (Östergren) desists from active suspension feeding and retires to depths of 30 – 60cm within coarse sediments. This torpor is marked by a progressive deterioration in general body condition, a reduction in metabolic activity and a decline in the lipid content of the intestine, body wall and gonad. Temperature change may cue this behaviour which is tentatively interpreted as a flight from seasonal impoverishment of the food reservoir and from turbulent water conditions.
