WEST INDIAN STARFISHES 59 



Asterina minuta Gray, (non Gmel., nee Brug.i*) Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., p. 



289, 1840; Synopsis Starfish, p. 16, 1866. Perrier, Arch. Zool. Exper. 



et Gen., v, p. 229, 1876. 

 Asteriscus folium Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci., i. p. 74, 1867. 

 Asterina folvam Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad. Sciences, vol. xii, p. 281, pi. 



xxxiv, c, figs. 3, a, b, 1907. 

 Asterinides folium Verrill, Revision Asterininae, p. 479, figs. 1913a; Stan 



fishes N. Pacific, p. 263, 1914o. 



Plate iii; fi^re 5. Plate xi; figure 4. Plate xxviii; figure 2. 



The rays are usually five ; sometimes six or four. The dorsal 

 plates are usually nearly naked, often bearing only a single or 

 double range of small and short spinules on the most elevated 

 portion. Dorsal radial plates are shield-shaped, notched for the 

 isolated papular pores. Papular pores form six simple radial 

 rows. They are absent from the interradial areas. 



Plates of the interradial areas are closely imbricated, not 

 lobed ; their exposed part is more or less rhombic. 



The interactinal plates are closely united ; each bears a fan of 

 usually three or four, sometimes five on the larger ones, of slen- 

 der webbed spinules. 



Adambulacral plates have, in the furrow-comb, about four 

 slender spines, and three or four in the actinal cluster. The 

 madreporite is near the central area of the disk. There are no 

 pedicellarige, 



A specimen before me, from Curacoa, has the radii 6™™ and 



of the median angle, in an emargination of the edge. Small intermediate 

 plates are few and isolated. 



The papular pores form about fourteen to eighteen short rows, extending 

 nearly to the margins and leaving only small interradial areas without 

 pores. 



Adambulacral furrow-spines slender, in regular combs of three to five; 

 those on the outer surface are much stouter, mostly two to a plate. In- 

 teractinal plates closely united, mostly with two acute spinules to a plate. 



Marginals very small, those of the two rows subequal, convex, finely 

 spinulose. 



The pedicellarise have the basal piece swollen, ovate, larger than the 

 tapered acute blades. They stand at all angles on dry specimens, but were 

 probably erect in life. 



14 The Asterias minuta of Gmelin, 1788, and of Brugieres, 1792, is 

 without much doubt the same as A. exigna Lam., but certainly not the 

 present species. 



