120 BULLETIX 82, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM VOLUME 1 



Type species. — Antedon gorgonia de FreminviUe, 1811, a synonjin of A. bifida 

 (seo p. 127). 



Geographical range.— From Iceland and about lat. 70° N. in Norwa}' to the West 

 Indies, Rio de Janeiro, the Gulf of Guinea and the Mediterranean, also from the Arabian 

 sea to the East Indian region, China and Japan, and the coasts of Australia. 



Bathij metrical range. — From tide pools and floating objects down to 932 meters; 

 but most abundant between 15 and 150 meters. 



Specific interrelationships within the genus. — Llhuyd (1699) noted that if Columna's 

 form were really different from his Decempeda cornuhiensium the differences were 

 very slight. 



Linck (1733) recognized three species in his AcKaKi'T^/ios, which is the exact equiva- 

 lent of Antedon, namely crocea (based on the Crocea zajjarana Neapolitanorum of Co- 

 lumna, often a foot in diameter), rosacea (which he figures, based on the Decempeda 

 cornuhiensium of Llhuyd, distinguished by its smaller size, from 6 to 7 inches in diam- 

 eter), and barbata (wliich he also figures, Ihefimbriaia of Barrelier, whose description 

 he quotes). 



Linnaeus (1758) placed all the comatulids with the other brachiate echinoderms 

 in the genus Asterias, and evidently intended to designate by the name of Asterias 

 peclinnta all the species now included in Antedon. But the specimen which he had 

 before him, and which he thought was the same form as those described by Llhuj'd, 

 Columna, and Barrelier, came from the Indian Ocean, which he mentions as the habitat, 

 and is an example of the species now called Comaiula pectinata. 



Pennant (1777) recognized two British species: bifida (based upon the rosacea of 

 Linck, which itself was based upon the Decempeda cornubiensium of Llhuyd); and 

 decacnemus, from the western coasts of Scotland, which he considered the same as 

 Linck's barbata, the fimbriata of Barrelier. 



Fleming (1828), following Pennant, also recognized two British species: rosacea, 

 the equivalent of Linck's rosacea; and Pennant's bifida, which he described as having 

 30 cirri, and barbata, which is the same as Linck's barbata (or so assumed by him) and 

 Pennant's decacnemus, \vith only 10 cirri. 



Dujardin in 1837 recognized two species: mediterranea (including rosacea Linck, 

 bifida Pennant, fimbriata Miller, and rosacea de Blainville), and barbata (including 

 barbata Linck, decaoeros [sic] Pennant, and pectinata Adams) ; he also mentions Comaiula 

 decacnemos as the adult of Pentacrinus europaeus, evidently adopting inadvertently the 

 name used by J. V. Thompson. 



The Scandinavian form of this genus, which when first discovered had been 

 considered as identical with the Mediterranean form, was described as a distinct species 

 under the name [Alccto] petasus by Diiben and Koren in 1846. 



In his monograph J. Muller (1849) admitted three species in the genus Antedon 

 as now understood: mediterranea, petasus and milleri, the last being the equivalent of the 

 Comatida fimbriata described by J. S. Miller m 1821, which is not the Comatula fimbriata 

 of Lamarck, 1816. 



In his earUer work Edward Forbes (1841) had considered the British animal 

 identical with the Mediterranean and Scandinavian, recognizing only the single species 

 which he called rosacea; but in his last contribution (1851) he hsts petasus and europaea 

 in addition, and gives various localities on the Scottish coast as mhabited by a new 

 species which he did not name. But in Forbes and Godwin-Austen's account of the 



