46 D"^ HUBERT LUDWIG. 



Gefunden wurde unser Thier in (1er Hai von Rio de Janeiro 

 in einer Tiefe von mehr als 30 Faden zu Anfang des Monats 

 September. 



Was die Bestimmiing dei' im Vorigen beschriebenen Chiro- 

 dola anbelangl, so zweifle ich nicbt, dass sie mit der von Pour- 

 lalès beschriebenen Cliirodota (Synapla Pourt.) roti fera identisch 

 ist. Bei dem Interesse, welches diese Art durch die nachher 

 nàher zu besprechende Brutpflege verdienl, erlaube ich mir bier 

 alle auf sie beziiglichen Angaben zusammenzustellen; es recht- 

 fertigt sich das umsomehr als die belreffenden Angaben sich in 

 weniger verbreiteten Zeitschriften behnden. 



Die Pourtalès'sche Beschreibung (1) laulet folgendermassen : 

 a Synapta rotifera. Twelve short, thick, palmated tentacles, 

 divided into eight or ten branches, of which the middle ones 

 are the longest. Skin transparent, of a light purplish color, 

 covered with white, wartlike spots. Tentacles whitish, with 

 similar spots on their base. The five longitudinal muscles are 

 seen as purple bands. A very young specimen has only four 

 branches to its tentacles, and his white warts arranged regularly 

 in longitudinal rows, alternating with the muscles. The skin 

 contains, in the white warts, great accumulations of calcareous 

 bodies, in the form of very regular wheels, each having six 

 spakes. Each wart contains about eighty or one hundred of 

 them, of all sizes; the largest having a diameter of about j^ 

 of an inch. The skin also contains small calcareous, elongated 

 bodies, in the form of those we have observed in the conical 

 papillae of Hololhuria floridana î> [== Holothuria atra Jagerj. 

 «This species lives in the interstices of the branches of a coral, 

 which occurs on shoals in Biscayne Bay, Florida. I have kapt 

 alive this species in a glass jar, along the sides of which they 

 would climb, actively, by means of the tentacles; the body han- 

 ging down in the water. » 



Dass Pourtalès die Gròsse der grossten Kalkradchen mit 



(1) Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 5^1» Meeting, held at Cincinnati, May 1831. Washington C, 1831, p. 15. 



