NO. 2022. NEW STARFISHES FROM THE PHILIPPINES— FISHER. 217 



superambulacral ossicles; ampullse double; tube feet rather small, 

 with well-developed sucking disks. 



Type of genus. — Tarachaster tenuis, new species. 



TARACHASTER TENUIS, new species. 



Rays 5. R = 67 mm., r=12 mm., R = 5.5 + r; breadth of ray at 

 base, 14 mm.; rays depressed, rather slender, long, bluntly pointed; 

 disk small; sides of ray rounded and occupied by the abactinal 

 plates; abactinal plates small, those on disk and along radial area of 

 ray ii-regularly three-lobed, imbricating; dorsolateral, lateral, and 

 narrow portion of ventral surface occupied by four-lobed plates in 

 about 10 longitudinal series at base of ray, also forming transverse 

 series; 3 series of larger plates adjacent to adambulacrals, the outer 

 two being the marginals; plates covered by small, stout, upright, 

 round-tipped, often clavate, close-set spinelets in groups resembling 

 low parapaxillse, 15 to 20 to a group; single papulae between the 

 abactinal plates ; adambulacral plates small, armature dense, upright, 

 the spinelets grading from the furrow series into those of the actinal 

 intermediate and marginal plates; furrow spines proximally 5 or 6, 

 distally 4 or 5, prismatic or four-sided, blunt or truncate, the proxi- 

 mal and distal shorter than the central 3 or 4; subambulacral spines 

 in 2 or 3, sometimes 4, series, with 2 or 3, or proximally 4, shorter, 

 less stout spmes in each series. General appearance suggestive of a 

 Henricia with closely placed plates. 



Type.— C&t. No. 32642, U.S.N.M. 



Type-locality. — Off Point Tagolo, northern Mindanao, 162 fathoms, 

 sand; bottom temperature, 54.5° F. 



It is difficult to place this genus. While it resembles Henricia 

 superficially, the double ampullse, closely placed and regularly 

 imbricated plates, and presence of superambulacral ossicles debar 

 Tarachaster from the Echinasteridae. The two other families to 

 which it shows most resemblance are the Ganeriidse and Asterinidse. 

 Tarachaster resembles NepantJiia superficially, on account of the 

 radial zone of irregularly arranged plates, but the actinal surface is 

 more like that of the Ganeriidse, to which the imbricated pseudo- 

 paxillse with definite lobes, the definite but not particularly con- 

 spicuous marginals, the actinal interradial plates in transverse 

 columns, and the adambulacral armature would ally it. Superam- 

 bulacral plates have not been reported in any of the three families. 



Family ASTERINID^. 



NEPANTHIA PEDICELLARIS, new species. 



Related to N. hracJiiata Koehler, but differing in lacking a flange 

 to the margin of rays, in having a narrower actinal intermediate 

 area, with fewer (about 10) chevrons of plates, but more numerous 



