ASCIDIANS FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND ADJACENT 



WATERS. 



By "Willard G. Van Name, 

 Of the American Museum of Natural History, New York. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Although the ascidians of the Malay Archipelago have already 

 been so much studied that it seems unlikely that many of the com- 

 moner and more widely distributed species have escaped discovery, 

 the Philippine Islands form one of the parts of that region that have 

 been but little investigated as far as their ascidian fauna is con- 

 cerned. As a whole the Malay region is remarkably rich in ascidians, 

 both in variety of form and number of individuals, and some 200 

 species have been recorded from it, but among these supposed species 

 there are undoubtedly many synonyms. Several important expedi- 

 tions that have made collections in the Malay region, the United 

 States Exploring Expedition, the Challenger Expedition, and the 

 Siboga Expedition, extended their operations into the southern part 

 of the Philippine group, and though as a result of their work a con- 

 siderable number of species of ascidians have been described or 

 recorded from Philippine waters, the localities investigated were too 

 few and too near together, and the amount of material too small to 

 give anything approaching a complete view of the ascidian fauna. 



The collection made by the Albatross Expedition affords for the 

 first time an opportunity for a general and comprehensive study of 

 the ascidians of the Philippines and their vicinity. That the collec- 

 tion falls very far short of containing all the species found there is 

 very evident. Many forms obtained by other expeditions are not 

 contained in it, and much more extensive collecting in the northern 

 part of the group would have been desirable. Future collectors will 

 find plenty of localities, quite extensive regions in fact, which have 

 been passed by entirely, and they will no doubt add many species and 

 some genera to the list of Philippine forms, yet the Albatross collec- 

 tion seems to be a sufficiently representative one to determine the 

 general character of the ascidian fauna of the Philippines and its 

 relation to that of the surrounding regions. 



101825°— Bull. 100—17 i 49 



