322 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 6 



Color faded, transparently whitish; no eye or pigmented spot. 



Remarks. — The present species has all the characters of the "in- 

 ornata" group of Laophonte except for the 6-segmented antennule, 

 which in that group is usually 7-segmented. I have, in the descrip- 

 tion, drawn attention to the very long ultimate segment; it seems 

 probable that the structure of the antennule in this only female 

 specimen is slightly aberrant. Certainly it is identical with L. dino- 

 cerata Monard, 1926, placed by Lang in the "inornata" group, but 

 synonymized by that author with L. inornata A. Scott, 1902. On 

 this point, in my opinion, Lang is certainly mistaken; both species 

 undoubtedly are related closely, as the identical setal formulae 

 indicate, but they stand apart in the structure of the thoracic somites. 

 Monard figures his specimen in the lateral aspect only, but the dorso- 

 lateral spiniform expansions of the 3rd to 5th thoracic somites are 

 very evident from his drawing in figure 1 ; these expansions also appear 

 in figure 2, representing a transversal section through the 4th thoracic 

 somite and apparently resulting from the isolation of the thoracic 

 rings. The fact that all of Monard 's female specimens were strongly 

 curved — a fact mentioned in his diagnosis but scarcely of taxonomic 

 importance here — apparently prevented him from making a drawing 

 of the animal or the genital region in dorsal view, with the result 

 that the curious structure of the genital somite escaped his attention. 

 The structure of leg 5, as appears from Monard's figure 10, parallels 

 the condition in the present specimen to the minutest detail; even 

 the closely packed spinules along the baso-endopodite are visible in 

 Monard's figure; the antennular structure, with the exception of the 

 ultimate and penultimate segments, is nearly identical. 



The distinct dorsolateral prolongations, according to Lang, should 

 represent the epimeral plates drawn out dorsally into chitinized knobs 

 ("Chitinzapfen"), which may be the case in L. sporadiensis (ac- 

 cording to Lang, synonj^mous with L. inornata) but certainly does 

 not cover the condition found in L. dinocerata, where the distinct 

 projections are free of the epimeral plates. Lang's reference to 

 errors in observations and differences in interpretation — "Die Dis- 

 krepanzen . . . beruhen ganz einfach auf mangelhaften Beobachtun- 

 gen und verschiedener Deutung der Objekten" (1948, p. 1345) — 

 in this particular instance seems too simple and gives no credit to 

 Monard's work, which does not deserve such denigrating comment. 



The species is known from three Mediterranean localities : Banyuls- 

 sur-Mer, France (Monard, 1926, 1928); Bab-el-Oued, Algeria, (Mo- 

 nard, 1937); Salammbo, Tunisia, (Monard, 1935); and from an Eng- 

 lish Channel locality: Roscoff, France (Monard, 1935). The presen 

 specimen, the first from the Pacific, was washed from sponges collected 

 from the reef at Elangelap in the Ifaluk Atoll. 



