NO. 1944. yEW GENERA AND SPECIES OF STARFISHES— FISHER. 635 



few adambulacral plates. R = slightly over 95 mm. (ray broken), 

 r = 27 mm., R = a little over 4 r. 



Type.— Cat. No. 30542, U.S.N.M. 



Type-locality. — Station 5516, Mndanao Sea, off Point Tagolo, 

 Mindanao, 175 fathoms, globigerina; bottom temperature, 54.3° F. 



A large radial plate has 5 to 12 central, subspherical uncrowded 

 granules and upward of 20 squarish, depressed, peripheral granules, a 

 trifle smaller. On the lateral parts of the papular areas the central 

 granules become more convex or elevated, witli a short, incipient, 

 mucronate tip; interradially the granules are flat-topped. The peta- 

 loid papular areas are broad, the extreme ^vidth comprising about 

 10 to 12 longitudinal series of plates. The first 2 or 3 adambulacral 

 plates with 5 or 6 furrow spines, blunt, nearly equal, slightly com- 

 pressed; then the plates gradually attain first a convex, then a strongly 

 angular margin, and the furrow spines increase to 9 (less often 10), the 

 3 to 5 mesial nearest apex of angle being more slightly built, com- 

 pressed, with edge to furrow, the 2 or 3 at either end of the series 

 being stouter, sublanceolate, blunt, with flat side to furrow. Sub- 

 ambulacral granules 8 to 16, in 2 or 3 series on outer part of ray, but 

 not so regularly arranged, as a rule, proximally. The outer granules 

 are subcorneal or acorn-shaped, but a series of 2, 3, or even more back 

 of the furrow spines are longer, slightly flattened, and rather tuber- 

 cular in form. 



N. euryplax closely resembles N. belli (Kcehler), from 250 fathoms, 

 off the Andaman Islands. It agrees in having the radial and adradial 

 abactinal plates much broader than long, in having the ray broad at 

 the base, with the fifth superomarginals conspicuously enlarged and 

 in contact medially, and in the general absence of abactinal pedicel- 

 larige, but differs in having the inferomarginals extending laterally 

 beyond the superomarginals, so that the actinal surface is wider than 

 the abactinal; in having longer, stouter rays; the 2 or 3 series of 

 abactinal plates parallel to the adradial are not so wide in proportion 

 to length — are nearly round, and have more numerous granules; the 

 madreporic body is surrounded by 6 plates, not 4; the fu-st row of 

 suboral granules is enlarged into spines; the furrow spines are 9 or 

 10 at middle of ray (Koehler gives 7 or 8 for belli, but possibly he 

 referred only to the proximal plates where in N. euryplax there are 

 at first 5 or 6, then 7 or 8, and finally a maximum of 9 or 10). 



NYMPHASTER DYSCRITUS, new species. 



Differing from N. euryplax in having less obviously widened abac- 

 tinal radial plates, slightly narrower superomarginals, the sixth being 

 as long as or longer than wide (eighth to sixteenth in euryplax) when 

 viewed directly from above; numerous abactinal pedicellaria?, a few 

 superomarginal, inferomarginal, and actinal intermediate pedicel- 



