72 Bulletin Vanderhilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



Genus: PALYTHOA Lamouroux 

 Palythoa tuberculosa (Esper) 



Plates 23 and 24 



Type: Peter Pallas was apparently the first to record this 

 species, under the name of Alcyonium papillosum from the Red 

 Sea, but his brief description being so imperfect has caused writers 

 to use the name A. tuberculosum given in Esper's more critical 

 description of this primitive coral, which he had from Tranque- 

 bar, Coromandel coast, India, and which was deposited in the 

 Nuremburg collections. 



Distribution: This species is widely distributed in the lit- 

 toral zone of the Indo-Pacific. 



Material examined : Two colonies, collected in shallow water, 

 Teviatoa Reef, Raiatea Island, Society Islands, August 21, 1931, 

 by the "Alva." One colony, about 2.5 centimeters high, oval, 10.5 

 centimeters long and 9.5 centimeters wide taken in one fathom, 

 low tide, Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, December 15, 

 1928, by the '*Ara." 



Colour : Dana records the polyps as varying from brownish 

 yellow to bright greenish yellow. 



Technical description : The larger colony has a length of 

 125 millimeters, a width varying from 30 to 45 and in places 55 

 millimeters, and a height of 11 to 15 millimeters. 



The polyps are united to their surface forming an explanate, 

 coriaceous mass, low and of irregular contour, usually adapting 

 itself to the stones, volcanic debris or other matter to which the 

 young colony becomes attached, this mass having certain seam- 

 like lines where the creeping zooids have met but not entirely 

 fused. The polyps, when contracted, have a disk diameter of 5 to 

 10 millimeters, the disk being marked with crenations to the cir- 

 cumferal margin. The tentacles range from 16 to 20 in small 

 polyps where they are arranged in single series, and in large 

 polyps there are as many as forty tentacles, arranged in two series, 

 the inner series appearing the larger, at least in dead specimens. 

 The tentacles are large, obtuse, clavate. There are 32 internal 

 lamellae. The texture of the mass of the colony is reinforced by 



