68 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN 



Family PoRANiroiE Perrier. 



Gymnasteriadce (pars) Perrier, op. cit., 1884, pp. 165, 229, Sladen, 1889, 



p. 355. 

 Foraniidce Perrier, op. cit., 1894, pp. 163, 227. 

 AsterojndfB {pars) Fisher, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 52, p. 90, 1908; 



op. cit. 19116, p. 247. Verrill {pars), op. cit., 1914a, p. 304. 



Disk usually large; rays short and broad. Dorsal ossicles 

 sometimes in regular radial rows, on subimbricated, more often 

 irregular, sometimes partly abortive, either covered with a thick, 

 smooth or granulated dermis, or spinulose. 



Marginal plates sometimes prominent; often small; usually 

 oblique or overlapping; the lower ones projecting, and often 

 with a small group of spinules on the outer edge, or with a 

 single spine, 



Interactinal plates often numerous ; usually in regular oblique 

 rows or chevrons or else in rows running to marginal plates, 

 Papulas in dorsal radial areas; sometimes interomarginal. 

 Pedicellariae lacking, 



Adambulacral spines may form a simple row, transverse to the 

 groove, or there may be also an inner comb of two, three or more, 

 often partly rubbed. 



The structure of some of the genera is very much like that of 

 the Asterinidae, with which the group might, perhaps, be united 

 as a subfamily, without doing violence to their natural affinities. 



The genus Poraniella, recently described, is more nearly inter- 

 mediate than any other. 



It is intended here to separate those genera of Asteropidae 

 closely related to the type, and especially those having bivalve or 

 trivalved pedicellariae, as a distinct family of the Valvulosa, Por- 

 aniidae appear to belong rather with the Spinulosa, next to As- 

 terinidae, 



Genus Poraniella Verrill, 



Poraniella Verrill, Annals and Mag. Nat. History, vol. xiv, p. 19, July, 1914c. 



Small starfishes with short rays. Dorsal surface covered with 

 flat imbricated plates, in regular radial rows on the rays, not 

 concealed by dermis, and bearing few spaced marginal spin- 

 ules; medial radial row is distinct. Papulae are isolated and 

 placed under the proximal edge of the radial plates. 



