THE GENUS HOLOPUS, WITH THE DESCRIP- 
TION OF A HITHERTO UNRECORDED 
SPECIMEN OF H. RANGII 
Collected by the Barbados-Antigua Expedition from the 
Jniversity of Iowa in 1918 
FRANK SPRINGER 
INTRODUCTION 
The island of Barbados is especially associated in the minds 
of naturalists with the curious ecrinoid genus Holopus. Of the 
single recent species of this genus only eleven specimens are 
known, of which certainly six and probably seven (possibly 
eight) are from Barbados. 
In view of the interest attaching to this form, upon which 
the literature is widely scattered and largely inaccessible to the 
average student, it has seemed advisable to give here a detailed 
account of it, reproducing also the more important of the pic- 
tures previously published. 
In addition to the recent H. rangiwz d’Orbigny (including 
H. rawsoni Gray) the genus may also include Holopus spilec- 
cense (Schliter) from the Italian Tertiary, originally described 
as Cyathidium, but afterwards referred to the present genus by 
Jaekel.* 
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT 
The first known specimen of Holopus was obtained in the 
island of Martinique by M. Sander Rang, who procured it, while 
it was still alive, from a fisherman. He sent it to Professor 
Alcide d’Orbigny, and the latter in 1837? published a very de- 
tailed description, calling it, after its discoverer, Holopus rangi. 
The original account of this extraordinary animal naturally at- 
tracted wide attention, and it was reprinted in various French, 
English and German journals. 
D’Orbigny made a section of the column of this specimen, 
1 Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. geol. Gessell. 1891, p. 619. 
2 Magazin de Zoologie, 7me Annee, 1837, Cl. X, pp. 1-8. 
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