6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. DO 



Subfamily COMASTERINiE 



COMASTER BELLI (P. H. Carpenter) 



Comaster typica (part) 191 1. A. H. Clark, Die Fauna Siidwest-Australiens, 

 Bd. 3, Lief. 13, p. 453 (Port Hedland, Western Australia). 



1. Abrolhos Islands {Houtman's Rocks), Western Australia. — 

 One small specimen with seventy-three arms about 85 mm. long ; the 

 cirri are VI, 14-16, 10 mm. to 12 mm. long. 



2. Broome, Roebuck Bay, Western Australia. — Two medium- 

 sized specimens; one has seventy-three arms 135 mm. long, and 

 cirri XVII, 11 mm. long; there are a few scattered small nodules on 

 the disk; the color is grayish brown; the other has sixty-eight arms 

 125 mm. long, and cirri XIV; the disk is thickly studded with small 

 calcareous nodules ; the color is bright yellow green, the centrodorsal 

 and cirri light slaty. 



The three small specimens from Port Hedland which I referred to 

 Comaster typica in my report upon the crinoids collected by the 

 Hamburg West Australian Expedition are undoubtedly representa- 

 tives of this species. 



Comaster belli is a very curious form ; large specimens are in 

 superficial appearance strikingly like similarly large specimens of 

 Comanthina schlegelii, both species agreeing in possessing a unique 

 type of arm division. Carpenter placed the two forms side by side in 

 his " Parvicirra Group " of Actinometra, and heretofore I have fol- 

 lowed him in keeping them close together. The terminal combs of 

 belli and the arm division beyond the IIIBr series, however, are of the 

 type typical of Comaster, and I find that, taking all the characters 

 together, the smaller the individual the greater the resemblance to 

 other species of Comaster, and the greater the difference from similar 

 small specimens of Comanthina schlegelii. It thus becomes necessary 

 to place Actinometra belli in the genus Comaster, where it finds its 

 proper systematic position near C. typica. 



COMASTER TYPICA (Loven) 



Actinometra typica 1888. P. II. Carpenter, "Challenger" Report, Coma- 

 tulre, p. 296 (1). 



I. Fiji. — One specimen. 



COMASTER NOViEGUINE^ (J. Miiller) 

 Actinometra novce-guinece 1900. Pfeffer, Abhandl. der Senck. naturforsch. 



Gesell., vol. 25, p. 85 (1). 

 I. Ternate. — Two small specimens. 



