102 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN 



where it is plentiful. When dried it usually becomes deep terra- 

 cotta color or brown. 



In life it is more flexible than its appearance would indicate. 

 Nutting states that it can curve its rays above its back until the 

 tips touch. 



This is the largest and most massive West Indian starfish and 

 also one of the most common in shallow water. It has a wide 

 range, extending from South Carolina to the Abrolhos Reefs, 

 Brazil, and to the Cape Verde Islands. It is very common in the 

 Bahamas, where large numbers were obtained by the Bahama 

 Expedition, and about the Florida reefs and keys, as well as 

 throughout the West Indies. Abundant at Bahia and Pernam- 

 bueo, low tide to two fathoms, and at the Abrolhos Reefs (R. 

 Rathbun). South Carolina (Agassiz). 



Family Goniasterid.e (Forbes), emended Verrill. 



Goniasteridce (pars) Forbes, 1840. Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci., i, p. 



343, 1867. Perrier (pars), Revision, Arch. Zool. Exper. et Gen,, iv, pp. 



281, 283, 289, 291, 1875; op. cit., v, p. 1, 1876. 

 Pentagona^terinw Vignier (pars), subfamily, op. cit., vii, p. 166, pi. x, figs. 



20-25, 1878. 

 PentagonasterldcE (pars) Perrier, op. cit., p. 231, 1884. Sladen (pars), op. 



cit., pp. 260, 264, 1889. 

 Goniasteridce Verrill (restricted). Revision, in Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci., x, 



p. 145, 1899 (non Vignier). Fisher, op. cit., 1911&, p. 158. Verrill, 



op. cit., 1914a., pp. 281, 285, 286. 



Phanerozonate starfishes usually having a rather broad flat or 

 slightly convex, rather rigid disk, sometimes nearly pentagonal 

 in form, but often stellate with more or less prolonged rays. 

 Marginal plates usually large and thick, forming a thick, nearly 

 vertical margin, the two rows equal or subequal. 



Dorsal plates are various, but usually tesselated, polygonal, or 

 roundish, sometimes lobed or substellate, united directly or by 

 internal ossicles. They are commonly granulated or protopax- 

 illiform, sometimes spinulose, or they may bear tubercles or 

 spines; rarely naked, or covered with soft skin, with or without 

 granules. 



Interactinal plates usually numerous, angular, tesselated, or 

 imbricated. Superambulacral plates may be present or absent. 

 Tube-feet are in two rows and have suckers. 



