100 Bulletin, Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. IV 



Material examined: One specimen, dredged in 150 fms., 7 miles 

 off Alligator Reef, Florida, March 30, 1926. 



Color: Reddish. 



Life history: Unknown. Eggs large. 



Technical description : Disk diameter, 18.5 mm. Disk encased in 

 a tough, thick skin in which there are a few small, scattered plates. 

 The dorsal plates are lacking ; the ventral plates are irregular, rather 

 well developed, covered by the thick skin. The radial shields are 

 long, narrow ribs, extending almost to the disk. The mouth-shields 

 are very small, or even lacking in older specimens. The mouth 

 papillae are well developed. One madreporite, fairly large. 



The arms are also skin-encased, three of them being decidedly longer 



and thicker than the other two. On these longer arms, the most 



central arm-spine of each series is, in the middle region of the arm, 



long and club-shaped, thorny and encased in a tough skin. On the 



smaller arms these spines are all short, hook-shaped. There are no 



spines present at the first pair of tentacle pores ; no tentacle scales. 



References: Asteronyx loveni Muller and Troschel, Syst. der 



Asterid., p. 119, 1842. — Lyman, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. I, 



p. 13, 1865.— H. L. Clark, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. XXV, 



p. 180, 1915. — Mortensen, Th., Denmark's Fauna, no. 27, 



Echinod., p. 151, fig. 65, 1924.— Handbook, Echinod., British 



Isles, p. 158, fig. 90, 1927. 



Family : GORGONOCEPHALIDAE. 



Genus: GORGONOCEPHALUS Leach. 

 Gorgonocephalus arcticus (Leach). 



Plate 60. 



Type: Leach's type was collected in Baffin's Bay, during the voyage 

 of discovery in H. M. SS. "Isdbelle" and "Alexander" in 1819, and 

 deposited in the British Museum. In 1670 John Winthrop, governor 

 of the colony of Connecticut, sent a specimen of this animal to the 

 repository of the Royal Philosophical Society of London. 



Distribution : This is a polar and subpolar species known in Europe 

 as far south in Scandinavian waters as 62° 43' N., 1° 26' S. ; found 

 also at Jan Mayen Land and on the coasts of Greenland, and on the 

 East American coasts as far southward as Cape Cod. Bathymetric 

 occurrence: Shore to 800 fms., the shallower records usually being 

 correlated with the more southern localities. 



