KEPORT ON THE SOUTH AMERICAN SEA STARS 

 COLLECTED BY WALDO L. SCHMITT 



By W. K. Fisher 



Of the Hoplctns Marine Station, Pacific Qrove, Calif. 



The following list of sea stars is based upon material collected by 

 Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, of the United States National Museum, in 

 1926 and 1927. during an extended investigation of the higher 

 Crustacea of South America, made under the auspices of the Walter 

 Rathbone Bacon scholarship. General collecting was therefore inci- 

 dental to the main object of the expedition. The principal locali- 

 ties are : Salaverry and Talara, Peru ; Antof agasta, Tocopilla, and 

 Punta Arenas, Chile; the Juan Fernandez Islands; Port Stanley, 

 Port William, and Teal Inlet, Falkland Islands ; Deseado, Patagonia. 



Especiallj^ valuable and perplexing has been a series of Aiiasterlas 

 from the Falkland Islands. OfMdiaster agassisii is figured for the 

 first time. 



OPHIDIASTER AGASSIZII Perrier 



Plates 1 aud 2; text Figure 1 



Ophidiaster agassisii Peekier, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 9, 1881, p. 10 ; M6in. 

 sur les Etoiles de Mer. 188-1, p. 223.— Meissnes?, Arcbiv f. Naturgesch., 1896, 

 vol. 1, p. 99. — DE LOBioL, Revue Suisse, de Zool., vol. 8, 1900, p. 79. — Liebek- 

 KiND, Asteroidea, in: The Natural History of Juan Fernandez and Easter 

 Island, edited by Dr. Carl Skottsberg. vol. 3, 1920, p. 387.— H. L. Clabk, 

 The Echinoderm Fauna of Torres Strait, 1921, p. 83. 



Juan Fernandez, December 9, 1926, two specimens. 



Clark (1921) writes that this species is related to O. confertus of 

 Lord Howe Island and O. kermadecensis of Raoul Island, Kerma- 

 decs, but is perfectly distinct from both. These species belong to 

 the section of the genus characterized by having between the furrow 

 spinelets one or more granules on the inner surface of the furrow, 

 and only one madreporite. Clark writes that the papular pores are 

 numerous (10 to 20 in each area), but in these examples of agassisii 

 (R, 27 mm.), there are only 5 or 6. Many of the furrow spinelets 

 are without intervening granules. On the proximal half of the ray 



No. 2859.— Proceedings U.S. National Museum, Vol. 73, Art. 16. 



2.3908—31 1 



