A NEW GENUS AND SPECIES OF MULTIBEACHIATE 

 OPHIURAN OF THE FAMILY GOEGONOCEPHALIDAE 

 FROM THE CAPvIBBEAN SEA. 



By Austin H. Clark, 



Assistant Curator, Division of Marine Invertebrates, United States National 



Museum. 



While in certain localities in the north Atlantic and Arctic Oceans 

 and over considerable areas in the north Pacific basket-fish are abun- 

 dant and easily collected, they are as a rule but rarely found in 

 other portions of the world, though they exist everywhere. In the 

 tropics especially their habit of clinging most tenaciously to strongly 

 rooted gorgonians renders their capture either by the dredge or by 

 the fisherman's hook quite a matter of accident. 



For this reason the numerous species have been, and still are, very 

 poorly represented in even the largest museums of the world. The 

 inevitable result of this has been to discourage intensive work upon 

 the group, and until the last ten years our knowledge of the inter- 

 relationships of the various forms has remained where it was left by 

 Ljanan, most naturalists contenting themselves with assigning the 

 species to one or other of the two genera Astrophyton and Gorgono- 

 cephalus.^ which in reality are synonymous terms. 



But recently the group has been thoroughly and most carefully 

 revised by Professor Doderlein, and the species distributed among no 

 less than fourteen genera, Astrindia, Astrohoa, Astrochalcis, Astro- 

 cladus^ Astroconus, Astrocyclus, Astrodactylus, Astrodendrum, 

 Astrogordius^ Astrophytum, AsfrorhapMs, Asfrospartus, Conocladus, 

 and Gorgonocephalus, by which their interrelationships have finally 

 been made more intelligible. 



The remarkable type herein described belongs to a peculiar group, 

 including Astrodaetylus from the East Indies and Astrogordius and 

 Astrocyclus from the Caribbean Sea, which is characterized by the 

 presence of a madreporic plate in each interradius. In the develop- 

 ment of the tentacle papillae it is intermediate between the first and 

 the two last, but in the development of articulated spinelets or teeth 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 54— No. 2257. 



G37 



