PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



by the 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 

 Vol. 86 WaJungton: 1939 No. 3061 



A NEW GENUS OF STARFISHES FROM THE ALEUTIAN 



ISLANDS 



By Austin H, Clark 



During the summer of 1937, Dr. Victor B. Scheflfer, of the United 

 States Bureau of Biological Survey, made an unusually extensive col- 

 lection of shallow-water echinoderms in the Aleutian Islands. 

 Among the starfishes included were two very small 6-rayed individ- 

 uals, one from Attn and the other from Amchitka, that at first, sight 

 appeared to represent a species of Pteraster. Closer examination re- 

 vealed the fact that they are assignable to the Ganeriidae, although 

 they are quite different from any of the other forms included in that 

 family. 



The family Ganeriidae includes the genera Ganeria, Lehnmaster, 

 Radiaster, Scotiaster^ Cycethra^ Kampylaster., and Leilaster. Of 

 these six genera two, Radiaster and Leilaster^ are known only from 

 the West Indies in water of from slight to great depth ; all the others 

 live in the Antarctic or immediately adjacent regions. It is especi- 

 ally interesting, therefore, to find a member of this family in the 

 North Pacific. 



ALEUTIASTER, new genus 



Diagnosis. — A genus of Ganeriidae in which the superomarginals 

 are absent ; the inferomarginals, which are but little larger than the 

 plates of the abactinal surface, are decumbent outwardly and broadly 

 imbricating; and the actinal plates consist of a single row not quite 

 reaching the arm tips, with a second irregular row traceable to about 

 the middle of the arm; hexamerous. 



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