EASTERN TROPICAL PACIFIC ASTEROIDEA. 81 



There is little color left in these specimens, which are nearly white, only 

 the disk and the cribriform organs being more or less brownish. 



Station 4658. Eastern Tropical Pacific, 8° 30' S., 85° 35' 36" W., 2,370 fms. Bott. temp. 35.3°. Fiie. 

 gn. m., mang. nod. 



Two specimens. 



Albatrossia nuda. 

 Plate 2, fig. 5, 6. 

 AWatrossaster midus Ludwig, 1907. Zool. Anz., 31, p. 318. 



The very small starfish upon which this species is based is unquestionably 

 congeneric with the two somewhat larger specimens upon which A . semimargin- 

 alis was founded by Ludwig, but the reduction of the inferomarginal plates 

 has not gone so far, and since the disk is almost completely bare of spines, it is 

 probably best to consider the present specimen representative of a different 

 species. But Ludwig's proposed change of the generic name from Albatrossia 

 to Albatrossaster is quite unjustifiable for Albatrossia is a different word from 

 Albatrossa with which Ludwig feared it might be confused. The confusion 

 does not seem probable, but in any case, the International Commission on 

 Nomenclature fully settled the matter in then- Opinion 25 (July, 1910), dealing 

 with the identical case of Damesella vs. Damesiella. Albatrossaster must 

 therefore be considered as a synonym of Albatrossia. 



The holotype of A. nuda is very weU-preserved, save for the breakage or 

 loss of the large spines on the terminal plate. R = 7 nmi. and r = 4.5. The 

 terminal plate is 1 mm. long and 2 mm. broad, with a deeply concave proximal 

 margin; it carries three spinelets, nearly or quite a millimeter long, one at the 

 middle of the upper margin and one at each of the lower distal corners. The 

 cribriform organ is more than a millimeter wide and the anal tube is nearly a 

 millimeter long. The adambulacral armature consists of two fiat, wide, pointed 

 spinelets, subequal or the distal one larger. Two similar spinelets occur on the 

 free lateral margins of the much swollen and conspicuous oral plates; at the 

 inner end of these plates, situated on the suture between them is a single, large, 

 oral spine. Ventrolateral plates, hke disk, smooth and without spinelets. 

 Color of disk pale dull reddish; marginal plates nearly white; lower surface 

 tinged with dull reddish. 



Station 4647. Eastern Tropical Pacific, 4° 33' S., 87° 42' 30" W., 2,005 fms. Bott. temp. 35.5°. Lt. gy. 

 and br. glob. oz. 



One specimen. 



