Prior to this study, 130 shallow-water (i.e. less then 50 m deep) species of echinoderms were reported from the subtropical (26°S/32°E -30°S/30°E) east coast of South Africa. The Indo-Pacific and the endemic components of this fauna made up 93 % of the species, while the circumtropical, the Atlantic and the cosmopolitan components represented only 7% of the echinoderm fauna. A current study in the KwaZulu- Natal province has added some 39 % of new records (excluding the Crinoidea) to the echinoderm fauna of this province. Changing its endemic component from 26 to 21 %, the Indo-Pacific component from 68 to 73 % with the other components remaining more or less stable. Total echinoderm species distribution of KwaZulu-NataI was analyzed with the second Kulczynski coefficient, a measurement of similarity between two bioassociational areas. This analysis reveals that while the faunistic components of KwaZulu-Natal seem rather homogeneous, the area in the region of St. Lucia Bay appears to be characterized by a high species turn-over
