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| In the early 1980's while doing subtidal surveys, we dicovered a major concentration of the small subtidal sea cucumber Pseudocnus curatus ( formerly Cucumaria pseudocnus) living in high density off the West side of Great Race Rocks. On April16, 2004, six divers, Ramiro, Mael, Mike, Carmen, Aven and Chris were able to do a preliminary survey of the area and have produced the results shown here. |
| To do the survey, they ran out a reel tape measure from shore to 75 meters in a bearing of 255 degrees magnetic from peg number 7- a permanent reference peg on the very South West corner of the Island. This took them into water that is 8 to 10 meters in depth. |
| We are uncertain as to why this organism concentrate here in these numbers, and this also happens at other locations such as Beecher bay 3 km to the West. This is the only area we find them in at Race Rocks. |
| Also included in this file are the raw data values from the divers. One may cliop and paste these into an EXCEL program in order to do alternate analysis. |
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| Raw Data from 0.125 meter quadrats |
Ramiro and Mael |
Mike and Aven |
Carmen and Chris |
| meters from the shore 40 |
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| 41 |
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| 42 |
0 |
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| 43 |
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| 44 |
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| 45 |
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| 46 |
0 |
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| 47 |
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1 |
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| 48 |
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7 |
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| 49 |
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20 |
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| 50 |
8 |
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| 51 |
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| 52 |
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9 |
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| 53 |
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| 54 |
3 |
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| 55 |
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| 56 |
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| 57 |
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2 |
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| 58 |
14 |
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| 59 |
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| 60 |
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| 61 |
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| 62 |
20 |
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| 63 |
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| 64 |
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20 |
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| 65 |
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1 |
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| 66 |
16 |
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1 |
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| 67 |
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8 |
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| 68 |
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25 |
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| 69 |
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2 |
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| 70 |
19 |
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13 |
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| 71 |
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29 |
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| 72 |
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19 |
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| 73 |
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31 |
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| 74 |
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0 |
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| 75 |
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16 |
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| Pseudocnus curatus Is similar to another species, Cucumaria pseudocurata which is found more shallow in the intertidal zone at Race Rocks. Both species average 1.5 to 3cm in length. C. pseudocurata has 5 bands of tube feet in sigle or zig zag rows. As a rule there are 8 equal sized tentacles. P.curatus on the other hand has 10 equal sized tentacles. and tube feet scattered on the Dorsal side. At Race Rocks, it lives in the subtidal zone at 8 to 10 meters in depth. |
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| The best reference for these two species is the Royal British Columbia Museum Handbook on Sea Cucumbers of British Columbia, SouthEast Alaska and Puget Sound, 1997, by Philip Lambert , UBC Press Vancouver. email orders@ubcpress.ubc.ca
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