238 BULLETIN 76, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Genus PERISSASTERIAS Clark 



Plate 71, Figure 3 



/■ .. at H. L. Clark, The Echinoderm Fauna of South Africa, Annals of the South 



African Museum, vol. 8, pt. 7, May 1923, p. 307. Type, P. polyacantha Clark. — Fisher, 

 1926, p. 199. 



Diagnosis. Adambulacral plates short, with numerous (usually four or five but as 

 few as two or three and as many as six or seven) spines, in transverse series, bearing 

 small Lanceolate straight pedicellariae; actinal area extensive with three to six longi- 

 series of well-developed, 4-lobed spiniferous plates separated by regular longiseries of 

 papular areas; abactinal plates cruciform, connected in transverse direction by 

 oblong secondary ossicles, leaving medium-sized intervals; dorsolateral skeleton on 

 cither side of the evident carinal series, broad, rather irregular; but sometimes poorly 

 defined longiseries of plates are evident; spines subacicular but strong, surrounded by 

 a wreath of pedicellariae; carinals with one to six spines; dorsolaterals with usually 

 one, marginals with two or three, and actinals with one to five spines; actinostome 

 small, but not sunken, two or three pairs of postoral adambulacrals being in contact 

 (pi. 71, fig. 3); papulae numerous; pedicellariae small, without outstanding characters; 

 the straight are small, lanceolate; the crossed, similar to those of Asterias ss.; gonads 

 open dorsally; size large; rays five to seven. 



An isolated genus more, nearly related to Asterias than to any group confined to 

 Southern Hemisphere. 



1. PERISSASTERIAS POLYACANTHA Clark. 



Perissasterias polyacantha Clark, 1923, p. 307, pi. 18, fig. 3; 1926, p. 29, pi. 6. — Fisher 

 1926, p. 199. 



Cape Colony: Off Cape Town, 156 fathoms; off Dassen Island, 170 fathoms. 



2. PERISSASTERIAS HEPTACTIS Clark. 



Perissasterias heptactis Clark, 1926, p. 26, pi. 5. 

 West from Lambert's Bay, Cape Colony, 210 fathoms. 



3. PERISSASTERIAS OBTUSISPINA Clark. 



/' rissasterias obtusispina Clark, 1926, p. 28, pi. 7, figs, 1, 2. 



Off Dassen Island, Cape Colony, 214 fathoms. 



Genus SALIASTERIAS Koehler 



Saliasterias Koehler, Austral. Ant. Exped., vol. 8, pt. 1, 1920, p. 52. Type, S. brachiata 

 Koehler.— Fisher, 1923, p. 603. 



Diagnosis. — Rays 9 or 10; skeleton irregularly reticulate; plates unequal and 

 without indication of carinal or dorsolateral longiseries; on sides of rays transverse 

 arcs of plates, of which the lowest is the inferomarginal, correspond to two narrow 

 adambulacral plates and alternate with conspicuous, quadrangular membranous 

 spaces (two adambulacrals in length), containing three or four papulae; no actinals; 

 abactinal spinclets slender, cylindrical, in small groups, surround the membranous 

 skeletal intervals containing three or four papulae; inferomarginal spines two or 

 three identical with dorsals; adambulacrals with two long, slender, cylindrical, ter- 

 minally rounded or truncate spinclets; crossed pedicellariae, upward of 0.4 mm. long 



