Boone, Coelenterata, Cruises of "Ara" and "Alva" 57 



Order: PENNATULACEA 



Family: VERETILLIDAE 



Genus: VERETILLUM Cuvier 



Veretillum vanderbilti, new species 



Plates 10, 11 and 12 



Type : One colony, in excellent state of preservation, taken in 

 25 fathoms, seven miles northeast of Corregidor Island, Manila 

 Bay, Luzon, Philippine Islands, January 25, 1929, by the "Ara." 



The present species, seventh member of the genus Veretillum 

 Cuvier, as given by Hickson (1916), ^ and augmented by a sixth 

 species from the Gulf of California (Deichmann, 1936), ^ is the 

 second member of the genus possessing spicules in the anthocodia, 

 the other one being the genotype, V. cynomorium (Pallas)^ which 

 is known from the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea and North Atlantic 

 to the Bay of Biscay and on the west African coast to South Africa. 

 Veretillum vanderbilti differs from V. manillense Kolliker*, the 

 only other species described from the Philippines, in the presence 

 of abundant and distinctive spicules in the cortex of the rachis 

 of V. vanderbilti. 



The present writer keenly appreciates the fact, pointed out by 

 Mr. Hickson, that there is really little difference of importance 

 existent between the Indo-Pacific species, Veretillum manillense, 

 Kolliker, V. tenue Marshall and Fowler and V. malayense Hickson 

 and the present species and that it is probable that all these Indo- 

 Pacific species of the genus will be united, but since this cannot be 

 sensibly done without study of a comprehensive series of speci- 

 mens, it provisionally seems necessary to keep the "Ara" specimen 

 separate as a new species, particularly since it is the only Indo- 

 Pacific series possessing distinctive spicules in the anthocodia and 

 also has numerous spicules intermeshed or interwoven in the 

 mesoglea of the rachis. 



Weretillum, Hickson, S. J., Siboga-Expeditie, Pennatulacea, Monogr. XIV, 1916, pp. 46-50. 



^Veretillum binphami, Deichmann, E., Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Found., Yale Univ., 1936, 

 vol. V, p. 4, text fig. 1. 



^Pennatulum cynomorium. Pallas, P. S., Misc. Zool., 1766, p. 176, pi. 13, figs. 1-4; with 

 earlier records in Rondelet, 1554, etc. 



^Veretillum manillense, Kolliker, A., Senckenb. Naturf. Gessellsch., abh., 1872, Bd. VIII. 

 p. 142, fig. 189. 



