TRACHYMEDUSAE 6i 



by a very narrow opening; they are female and contain numerous small eggs. There were 6 tentacles 

 per octant, but they are all broken off short. The statocysts are lost. Velum very broad. 



The two other specimens are badly preserved. In one of them almost all the tentacles are lost, but 

 some of the sensory clubs are retained. In the other specimen some of the tentacles are retained; they 

 are long and each of them has a distinct terminal knob. 



Distribution. This peculiar little medusa, which may attain a height of 3 mm., is recorded from 

 North and South Carohna on the Atlantic coast of North America. Mayer (1910) found it at Naples 

 in the Mediterranean, and according to Picard (1951) it is abundant near Marseilles and Villefranche- 

 sur-Mer. It is identical with P. lucerna Haeckel from Corfu and P. dissogonima Haeckel from the 

 Straits of Gibraltar. Thiel (1936) recorded it from several localities in the central and southern Atlantic 

 between 19° N and 41^° S. The present specimens from the Gulf of Guinea do not increase the known 

 area of distribution. 



Crossota brunnea Vanhoffen 1902 



(Text-fig. 17) 



19026 Crossota hruimea Vanhoffen, p. 73. PI. 9, figs. 11-13; PI. 12, figs. 34-8 and 43-7. 



1909 Crossota brunnea Bigelow, p. 135. PI. 2, fig. 7; PI. 45, fig. 9. 



1912a Crossota brunnea Vanhoffen, p. 385. 



1936 Crossota brunnea Thiel, p. 20, in part. 



Occurrence: Stns 9, 71, 72, 76, 78, 85, 86, 89, 100, loi, 151, 239, 391, 395, 401, 666, 671, 675, 773, 1298, 1574, 



1633, 1639, 1707, 1719, 1743, 1745, 1750, 1758, 1776, 1784, 1825, 1917, 1970, 1974, 2042, 2048, 2053, 2061. (For 



details of position, date, etc., see Table i, p. no, and text-fig. 17, p. loi.) 



The most interesting of these localities is St. 1298 in the South Pacific, in about 69° S, 126° W, this 

 being the first time that the species has been taken in the Pacific outside the tropical region. It is 

 also of considerable interest that it was found in numerous localities in the south-western Atlantic, 

 from which there was only one previous record, when some few specimens were found north-west of 

 South Georgia by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition (Kramp 19486, p. 10); 'Discovery 11' even 

 found it in the Weddell Sea. Some of the specimens are in beautiful condition. 



I have previously discussed the species of Crossota (Kramp 1947, p. 21). It is very deplorable that 

 Thiel (1936) united most of the species under the name C. brunnea; his map of distribution is there- 

 fore unreliable. 



Distribution. Common in the deep layers in all the oceans south of the equator; as seen from the 

 present collection it has a circumpolar distribution in the antarctic seas. In the Pacific it had not 

 been found outside a comparatively small area off the coast of Peru (Bigelow 1909) and off southern 

 Japan (Uchida 19476, p. 338), the only record from the northern hemisphere. Now also found in 

 the antarctic part of the Pacific. 



Crossota alba Bigelow 19 13 



1913 Crossota alba Bigelow, p. 49. PI. 3, figs. 9-12. 



Occurrence: St. 2059. 30. iv. 37. 09° 11' 24" S, 05° 17' 24" W. Net: N 450 B 1900-1400 ni. i specimen. 



St. 2066. 5.V. 37. 04° 56' 24" N, 14° 46' 42" W. Net: N450B i950-i55om. 2 specimens. 



It was a great surprise to find this medusa in the tropical Atlantic, but I do not hesitate to refer the 

 specimens to this Japanese species, though all of them are destitute of gonads. The exumbrella is 

 furrowed in the characteristic way peculiar to the genus, the structure of the manubrium, the number 

 of tentacles and the colours agree perfectly with the description of C. alba. 



The specimen from St. 2059 is 16 mm. in diameter and 12 mm. in height; the manubrium is 

 7 mm. long, tubular; the colour of the stomach is sometimes a deep violet, almost black, but in some 

 lights it appears chocolate-brown; the mouth tube, which is i mm. long, is white, and the umbrella 



