STARFISHES OF THE PHILIPPINE SEAS. 337 



15 or 16. R=80 mm,, r=44 mm., Il=about 1.8 r. General form 

 similar to that of granulosus but the rays are thicker toward the end 

 owing to the heavier superomarginals, the last 6 or 7 pairs of which 

 are in contact medially. 



Description. — The abactinal area is overlaid by a thick membrane, 

 which in drying allows the small granules to be seen. These are sub- 

 equal and about the size of the smallest granules of granulosus. Only 

 in the center of the disk are they as numerous as in granulosus., and as 

 just indicated they are not larger in the center of the plate (which is 

 a characteristic of granulosus) . In granulosus they are numerous all 

 over the abactinal area, but in litliosoms they are closely placed only 

 on the center of the disk, becoming more and more widely spaced as 

 the margin is approached and on the outer part of ray are scarce. 

 Scattered over the papular areas (which are as in granulosus) are 

 numerous tiny pedicellariae similar to those of granulosus., but larger 

 than the granules (since the granules are very small). 



Superomarginals 18, massive and tumid, keeping their width 

 (which exceeds the lengih) up to about the twelfth to fourteenth 

 plates, and from that point gradually narrowing. As a consequence 

 the rays are distally wider than in granulosus., in which the plates 

 narrow gradually from the base of the ray. The first 7 plates have 

 a central group of coarse hemispherical granules, which in a dried 

 specimen, remind one of little heaps of stones. The first plate has 

 about 24 granules and the seventh 5 or 6. The outer plates have 

 only the microscopic granules such as surround the coarse proximal 

 granules. These are invisible until the specimen is dried. Terminal 

 plate pentagonal about as wide as long, with the scars of 5 terminal 

 spines. Inferomarginals encroaching conspicuously upon actinal 

 area and extending interradially slightly beyond the superomar- 

 ginals. They decrease regularly in width and become rather more 

 tumid as the end of the ray is approached. The first 10 are covered 

 with coarse granules which decrease in size from the edge of ray 

 toward inner margin of the plate. The ninth to eleventh plates have 

 a rapidly decreasing number of granules, the remaining plates, as 

 well as a widening space along the upper margin of the first eleven, 

 being occupied by the minute grains referred to above. 



Actinal intermediate plates distinctly tuniid with 3 to 10 unequal, 

 coarse, hemispherical granules surrounded by 10 to 20 spaced, much 

 smaller ones, very much as in granulosus., except that toward the 

 margin the small granules are fewer and smaller than the corre- 

 sponding ones in granulosus ; hence there is more discrepancy in 

 size between the 2 kinds. The plate adjacent to the adambulacrals 

 and a few others have upward of 6, usually 1 to 4,. small, 2-jawed 

 pedicellariae similar to those of granulosus. 



