The Echinoderm Fauna of South Africa. 311 



endemic, two are antarctic, two are known from southern South 

 America and one is known from Australia and the East Indian region. 

 There are therefore no fewer than 19 distinctly austral species in 

 the 22 making up the continental fauna. The remaining three species 

 are more or less cosmopolitan in deep water and their occurrence 

 in South African waters is thus of uncertain significance. Two of 

 the three are species of Ophiactis, a difficult genus, the distribution 

 of whose deep water species is still a puzzle. The other cosmopolitan 

 ophiuran is Asteronyx loveni, which was originally discovered in 

 Norwegian seas, but has since been taken in the North Atlantic, 

 North Pacific and Indian oceans, as well as among the West Indian 

 Islands, off the Western coast of Mexico and off the southeastern 

 coast of Australia. 



Of the 5 abyssal ophiurans included in the present report, none 

 are endemic but all are well-known and wide-spread species. Two 

 are known from both the North Atlantic and North Pacific and two 

 from the North Pacific and East Indian regions. One, Ophiernm 

 vaUincola, being previously known only from the North Atlantic and 

 the Antarctic abysses, would naturally be expected in the deeps oft' 

 South Africa. 



In conclusion then, we may say, in the light of our present know- 

 ledge, that the brittle-star fauna of South Africa is quite characteristic, 

 more than half (30) the known species being endemic and five others 

 being distinctly austral forms. Nearly half the remaining species are 

 not really part of the South African fauna at all, as they are not 

 known from south of Mozambique. The affinities of the littoral 

 species are distinctly Indo-Pacific and yet there are two notable cases 

 of Atlantic relationship, in Ophiothrix fragilis, an European species, 

 and Ophioderma leonis, a member of a very characteristic West Indian 

 genus. The continental fauna is more emplatically endemic than is 

 the littoral, and its affinities are clearly not Indo-Pacific, as only 

 four or five of its members are certainly derived from that side of 

 Africa, while twice as many have a more or less clearly marked 

 relationship to the Atlantic fauna and three are distinctly austral, 

 two being Antarctic. The impression made by the study of the sea- 

 stars that the shallow water fauna is of Indian origin while that of 

 the deeper water is from the west, is thus strengthened by study of 

 the brittle-stars. 



There is surprisingly little similarity between the brittle-stars of 

 Australia, or those of southern South America, and those of South 

 Africa. The small and specialized genera Ophiomisidium and Dicten- 

 ophiura have Australian species but they are also known from the 



