A REPORT ON THE ECHINI OF THE WARMER EASTERN 

 PACIFIC, BASED ON THE COLLECTIONS OF THE 



VELERO III 

 (Plates 35-71, Text Figures 1-3) 



Hubert Lyman Clark 



The great collections of Echini (28,835 specimens, including over 

 11,000 young Dendr asters) made by the Velero III under the direction 

 of Captain Allan Hancock, during the years 1931-1941, have proved a 

 field for research as varied and interesting as it is large and illuminating. 

 It was just eighty years ago that Verrill published his first papers on the 

 Echinoderms of Panama and the w^estern coast of America and for four 

 years he continued his studies of that fauna. In 1871 there appeared 

 (Trans. Conn. Acad. vol. 1, pt. 2, art. 5, no. 8, pp. 593-595) his list of 

 the Echini of the Gulf of California which included 22 species. Subsequent 

 additions and emendations enabled A. Agassiz in 1904 to list 28 species 

 from the Panamic region and 21 more from very deep water (300-2200 

 fms). In recent years additional species have now and then been added or 

 corrections made, so that Grant and Hertlein (1938) include some 47 

 recent species in their list. Several, however, are from veiy deep water 

 and are hardly to be counted in the present fauna of the warmer Eastern 

 Pacific. 



The area thus designated may be defined as extending from the coast 

 of Oregon at Ocean Park (Lat. 44° 50' 45'' N), southward along the 

 American coast to San Juan Bay, Peru (Lat. 15° 20' S), and westward 

 to include the islands, Socorro, Clarion, Cocos, and the Galapagos, down 

 to depths of 80 fms or less, very rarely to 300-400 fms. In depths exceeding 

 100 fms, the water is no longer warm and the bottom fauna can not be 

 properly included as belonging to the "waraier Eastern Pacific." The 

 great gulf of California has an interesting fauna including 22 species of 

 Echini. Only one of these, however, is restricted to the Gulf, 8 extend 

 their range to the north and 19 to the south. Due to certain local restric- 

 tions, collecting along the coast of Mexico and Central America did not 

 yield so large a number of Echini as did the Gulf, and even in the Bay of 

 Panama only 18 species were taken. Colombia yielded but 1 1 species while 

 Ecuador has 14 to her credit and only 6 were recorded from Peru. North 

 of the international boundary (United States-Mexico) some 14 species 

 have been taken by the Velero. The outlying islands have proved good 

 collecting grounds, for while Cocos yielded only 11 species, Clarion had 

 10, Socorro 12, and the Galapagos no few than 23, of which 4 were not 

 found elsewhere. 



[225] 



