184 Bulletin Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



K., Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. XXXII, 1907, p. 648, pi. 67, 

 figs. 1, la-d.— Clark, H. L., Publ., 214, Dept. Marine Biol., 

 Carnegie Inst., Washington, D. C, 1921, p. 188. 



Genus: STICHOPUS Brandt 

 Stichopus horrens Selenka 



Plate 68 



Type: The type was collected in the Society Islands and is 

 deposited in the Leipzig Zoological Museum. 



Distribution : This species has been recorded from the lit- 

 toral zone of the South Pacific, at the following places : Cebu, 

 Philippine Islands (Lampert, Fisher) ; Mer and Erub, Torres 

 Straits (H. L. Clark) ; Pelew Islands, Samoan or Navigator 

 Islands, Tonga Archipelago, Fiji Archipelago (Semper, Theel) ; 

 Sandwich Islands (Theel) ; Hawaiian Islands (Fisher) ; Society 

 Islands (Selenka, Boone). 



Material examined: One very large specimen, taken on 

 Venus Point Reef, Society Islands, August 15, 1931. 



Colour: Dr. Hubert L. Clark has given an excellent colour 

 plate of this species made from living holothurians in Mer and 

 Erub, Torres Straits (1921, pi. 18, fig. 4). The colour pattern is 

 an indescribably variable mottled combination of brown, blackish- 

 gray and white with occasionally olive green. Dr. Fisher (1907) 

 found Hawaiian specimens dominated by olive green and brown- 

 ish-green. The smaller living specimens are very pellucid, a fac- 

 tor which greatly increases their protective colouration. 



Technical description: The single specimen taken by the 

 "Alva" is very contracted but measures 16 inches long. The gen- 

 eral form of the living holothurian is elongate-subcylindrical, not 

 visibly tapered anteriorly but moderately tapered and truncate 

 posteriorly; dorsally arched and ventrally flattened. The mouth 

 is large, ventral, anterior, surrounded by a fringed papillose col- 

 lar. There are twenty tentacles, each of which is rather short, 

 broad, peltate, with a convex crown. The peristome of living speci- 

 mens is characterized by conspicuous, coarse, conical, mammiform 



