Vol. 30, pp. 23-26 February 21, 1917 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



THE ASTEROID GENUS CORONASTER.* 

 BY WALTER K. FISHER. 



The genus Coronaster Perrier, currently classified in the Pedi- 

 cellasteridae, should include also Asterias (Stolasterias) volsellata 

 Sladen, which Professor Verrill recently made the type of 

 Heterasterias,t of the family Asteriidae. 



Coronaster, as usually understood, includes the following 

 nominal species: C. parfaiti Perrier, the type, from the Cape 

 Verde Islands; C. antonii Perrier, founded upon a very imma- 

 ture specimen from Morocco; C. briareus (Verrill), from south 

 of Key West, and also northward between N. lat. 37° 18' 11" and 

 36° 41' 05"; C. bispinosus Ives, locality unknown, perhaps 

 identical with briareus; C. octoradiatus (Studer), from South 

 Georgia Island. 



Verrill J has given the most recent diagnosis of Coronaster : 

 ' Delicate starfishes with a small disk and numerous slender 

 rays, covered with long, slender spines in radial rows. The 

 dorsal skeleton is weak, made up of the rows of median and 

 superomarginal plates, connected together by slender transverse 

 ossicles. Each plate of the longitudinal rows usually bears one 

 slender spine. Both rows of marginal plates well developed 

 and spiniferous. No interactinal [actinal intermediate] plates. 

 Adambulacrals diplacanthid. Large, felipedal [unguiculate], 

 dermal major pedicellariae occur above and below. Minor 



* Published with permission of the Commissioner of Fisheries. 



+ Monograph of the Shallow-water Starfishes of the North Pacific Coast, etc., 1914, 

 p. 46. 



X Report on the Starfishes of the West Indies, Florida, and Brazil, Bull. Univ. Iowa, 

 Vol. 7, No. 1, Mch. 20, 1915, p. 31. 



8— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 30. 1917. (23) 



