80 THE ECHINODERMS OF TORRES STRAIT. 
Ophidiaster chinensis. 
Perrier. 1875. Rev. de Stell., Arch. Zool. Exp., 4, p. 123 (or 387). 
Nothing is known of this species beyond Perrier’s brief description of two specimens 
from Canton. It is hard to see from that how it is essentially different from either ophi- 
dianus or guildingii. If there are really of the subambulacral spines, ‘‘deux pour trois 
piquante internes,”’ as Perrier says, we have a remarkable arrangement not known in any 
other Ophidiaster, viz.: every other adambulacral plate carries 2 equal, large subambulacral 
spines. The types of chinensis were small with R=48 mm. The species has not 
been figured. 
Ophidiaster alexandri. 
Verrill. 1915. Bull. Lab. Nat. Hist., Univ. Iowa, 7, p. 91, pl. xiii, figs. 3-3); pl. xxv, fig. 2. 
Thanks to the kindness of Dr. Paul Bartsch, I have had the opportunity of examining 
two of Verrill’s original specimens from the collection of the U. S. National Museum. 
In one R=23 mm.; the other is much larger, as R=41 mm. In both, pedicellarize are 
numerous on the actinal surface, a point which Verrill does not mention. The form of the 
rays reminds one of Hacelia and it might be thought that the sea-star described beyond as 
Hacelia superba (p. 87) is only the adult of this species. Aside from any question of generic 
difference, the adambulacral armature of the present species is perfectly distinctive. Verrill 
says of the subambulacral spines that they are ‘‘tapered,”’ and of the supplementary spine- 
lets that they are acute. In the specimens before me the subambulacral spines are wide, 
flattened, and blunt at tip, in no respect tapered, and the supplementary spinelets are short, 
thick, and blunt, not at all acute. The species is therefore evidently variable in these par- 
ticulars. It is known as yet only from off Georgia and Florida, in 200 to 276 fathoms. Of 
all members of the family it thus lives at the greatest depth. 
Ophidiaster rhabdotus. 
Fisher. 1906. Bull. U.S. Fish Comm. for 1903, p. 1082, pl. xxx, fig. 2; pl. xxxi, fig. 8. 
This species is known only from a single specimen, with R=80 mm., taken near 
Kauai, Hawaiian Islands, in 40 to 233 fathoms. The color in life was not recorded; in 
alcohol it was dull dark-brown. 
Ophidiaster duncani. 
De Loriol. 1885. Mem. Soc. Phys. Hist. Nat. Genéve, 29, No. 4, p. 15, pl. xi, figs. 2-27. 
This species also is based on a single specimen sent from Mauritius by Robillard, 
and beautifully described and figured by de Loriol. It had R=93 mm. and the color 
(dry) was variegated brown-violet and deep purple. 
Ophidiaster lioderma ! sp. nov. 
(Plate 27, Figures 3 and 4.) 
R=115 mm.; r=11 mm.; br=13 mm.; R=10.5 ror 8.8br. Disk relatively small and 
flat. Rays very unequal (115, 95, 93, 85, 78 mm.), cylindrical, tapering only on the distal 
fourth or third. Entire animal, clear to the furrow spines themselves, incased in a very 
smooth, loose skin, uniformly covered with fine granules, 50 to 75 to a square millimeter; 
even at the centers of the abactinal plates the granules are not noticeably larger than 
elsewhere; near the adambulacral furrow, however, they are larger than on the dorsal 
surface. Papuls in 8 well-marked series of little sunken areas, 12 to 20 to an area; each 
area is about as large as a dorsal plate but is clearly smaller than the marginal plates. 
Terminal plate small, about 2 mm. across, smooth and bare, with 2 to 4 more or less prom- 
inent tubercles; it is distinctly imbedded in the granular skin. Madreporite smooth, about 
2 to 3 mm. across. 
1 Aecoc =smooth +dépua =skin, in reference to the unusually smooth surface of the body. 
