AMPHIURIDAE 287 



The finding of this species, hitherto known only from South African seas, in the 

 Gulf of Guinea, is of considerable zoogeographical interest. The specimens from the 

 Gulf of Guinea are quite typical, only somewhat smaller than the South African 

 specimens, none of them exceeding 6 mm. diameter of disk. 



Amphiura Chiajei, Forbes 



Amphiura Chiajei, Lutken, 1858. Additamenta ad hist. Oph., I, p. 57, Tab. ii, fig. 12 a, b. 

 A. Chiajei, Ludwig, 1879. Die Echinodeimen d. Mittelmeeres. Mitth. Zool. Stat. Neapel, i, 



P- 550- 

 A. Chiajei, Koehler, 1921. Faune de France. Echinodermes, p. 78. 

 A. Chiajei, Mortensen, 1927. Handbook Echinod. Brit. Isles, p. 212. 



For the older literature cf. Ludwig, op. cit. 



St. 274. 4. viii. 27. Off St Paul de Loanda, Angola, 64-65 m. 2 specimens. 

 St. 279. 10. viii. 27. Off Cape Lopez, French Congo, 58-67 m. 4 aduh and several young 

 specimens. 



These are quite typical A. Chiajei. The species was not hitherto known farther south 

 than the Moroccan coast ; but the finding of these specimens off French Congo proves 

 that it occurs probably all along the African Atlantic coasts, at least as far south as 

 French Congo. It is only to be wondered at that it has not hitherto been found there. 



The young specimens from St. 279, though not altogether showing the characters of 

 the species clearly (only three arm spines), decidedly belong to this species; I have com- 

 pared them with specimens of corresponding sizes from the Kattegat, where confusion 

 with other species is excluded, and find them to be identical. 



One cannot help being struck by the very great general resemblance between the 

 present specimens and the Amphiocnida semisquamata described and figured by Koehler 

 in Michaelsen's Meeresfauna Westafrikas. However, the scales of the present specimens 

 are smooth and thus typical of Amphiura Chiajei, and do not end in a point as in 

 Amphiocnida semisquamata — or rather Acrocnida, as it must be named according to 

 Gislen's revision of these forms in his paper On the generic types of the Ophiurid genus 

 Ophiocentrus Ljungman (Goteborgs K. Vetensk. Vitterhets-Samhalles Handlingar, iv, 

 Ser. 30, 6, 1926). Further, there is no distinct median keel on the ventral plates as in 

 Amphiocnida semisquamata, and the spines are more slender and pointed than in that 

 species; it is thus out of the question that they could be identical. But it seems evident 

 that the genus Acrocnida is very closely related to Amphiura Chiajei, perhaps derived 

 from the latter, or at least from an Amphiura of that type. 



Ophiocentrus novae-zelandiae, Gislen 



Ophiocnida pilosa, H. L. Clark, 1909. Echitiodermata. Sci. Results Trawlitig Exped. 'Thetis'. 



Mem. Austral. Mus., iv, p. 541. 

 Amphioc?iida pilosa, Mortensen, 1924. Echinoderms of New Zealand and the Auckland-Campbell 



Islands. II, Ophiiiroidea. Papers from Dr Th. Mortensen's Pacific Exped., xx (Vid. Medd. 



Dansk Naturh. Foren., 77), p. 154. 



