132 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 234 



the carpal cluster. Five of these are not in regular order; a proximal 

 pair, followed by three others in an irregular row. Beyond these the 

 next four are also irregular. The suckers of the hand portion are in 

 four rows, the suckers of the median rows being three to four times 

 the size of the small marginal ones. The suckers of the carpal area are 

 typical distal arm suckers with a flattened smooth proximal border and 

 about seven teeth distaUy of which the center one is larger than the 

 others. Beyond the first 11 suckers aU are toothed on their entire 

 margins. The large suckers of the hand region have 14 to 18 large 

 sharp teeth, the outer one the largest, alternating with broadly trian- 

 gular or rounded teeth which are much smaller. Distally the smaller 

 suckers have numerous sharp slender teeth separated by smaller ones 

 in between. 



The smaller specimen has about the same general plan except that 

 there are 18 to 20 pointed teeth alternating with smaller rounded ones. 



Type. — U.S. National Museum. 



Type locality. — Off Atalaya Ft., Batag Id., east coast of Luzon, 



Discussion. — The present specimens may, if my interpretation is 

 correct, partly explain the perplexing question of the variations in the 

 ommastrephids of the Facific. 



In 1849, Gray described a new species of ommastrephid squid from 

 New Zealand, Ommastrephes sloanii; Gould in 1852 described a species 

 from the Fiji Islands which he called 0. insignis. In 1888, McCoy 

 named 0. gouldii from Australia and in the same year Steenstrup 

 described Todarodes pacijicus from Japan. In 1898, Rochebrune and 

 Mabille described a species from Cape Horn which they called Mar- 

 tialia hyadesi, and in 1912 Berry described 0. hawaiiensis from the 

 Hawaiian Islands. 



Ffeffer (1912) treated the ommastrephids of the Pacific in some 

 detail. On the basis of the double hectocotylization of the ventral 

 arms in insignis from Akaroa, New Zealand, he established a new 

 genus, Nototodarus, for this species. But as Dell (1952) has pointed 

 out, only a single species, N. sloani, occurs in New Zealand; hence 

 Ffeffer's (1912) type species is based on the characters of N. sloani 

 and not on N. insignis which may or may not be conspecific. In the 

 same work (1912), he reduced 0. gouldi to the synonymy of 0. sloani) 

 0. hawaiiensis was as yet undescribed. Martialia hyadesi he placed 

 in the genus Ommastrephes. Thus, according to Ffeffer there were in 

 the Facific the following species: N. insignis {=0. sloani), 0. sloani 

 sloani, 0. {= Todarodes) sloani pacijicus. In addition there are the 

 true insignis, Berry's hawaiiensis, and 0. hyadesi from oft' South 

 America. 



