BIGELOW: MEDUSAE FROM THE MALDIVE ISLANDS. 263 
Nausithoe punctata KOLLiKeEr. 
Kolliker, 1853, Zeit. fiir Wiss. Zoologie, bd. IV. 
Nausithoe punctata, var. Pacifica, Agassiz & Mayer, 1902, Mem. Mus. Comp. Zo0l., 
vol. 26. 
Plate 6, Fig. 21. 
In the descriptions and figures of this genus, given by Kolliker, Agassiz and 
Mayer, Mayer, Haeckel, and Gegenbauer, there has been a great deal of con- 
fusion as to the relative radial positions of the marginal tentacles, gonads, and 
groups of gastric cirri. Kolliker, who established the genus, figures Nausithoe 
punctata with the gastric cirri and gonads in the tentacular radii (Zeit. fiir 
Wiss. Zool., bd. 4, p. 323). Gegenbauer, who has given the best figures of 
this species, followed his example (Arch. Anat. and Phys., 1853, p. 239). 
Haeckel (System, part 2, 1879) says that the gastric cirri are in the radii of 
the sense organs (gonads and tentacles adradial) ; while Mayer says of Nausi- 
thoe pnnctata that the gastric cirri lie in the radii of the marginal sense organs, 
but in his figures they are in the tentacular radii! (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool, 
vol. 37, no. 2.) Finally, Agassiz and Mayer (Mem. M. C. Z., vol. 26, no. 3, 
1902) figure Nausithoe punctata var. pacifica and Nausithoe picta with them 
in the tentacular radii. 
In our specimens the arrangement was as follows. The four angles of the 
mouth, and the four groups of gastric cirri which alternate with them, are in 
the radii of the eight marginal sense organs. The eight gonads he in the radii 
of the eight tentacles. There are thus sixteen distinct radu, eight tentacular, 
in which lie the eight gonads, and eight ocellar, corresponding to the four 
groups of gastric cirri, and the four arms of the cruciform mouth. This agrees 
with Haeckel’s statement and Mayer’s description. 
The bell is flat, of the Ephyra-like outline typical of the genus, seven to nine 
mm. in diameter. There are eight stiff, solid tentacles arising from the clefts 
between the eight marginal lobes. Each marginal lobe is subdivided into two 
lappets, and between each two lappets there isa sense organ. Each sense organ 
contains a spherical otocyst and a proximal dark-brown ocellus, provided with 
two nerve fibres and a lens. The mouth is cruciform, and alternating with the 
arms of the cross there are four groups of gastric cirri, from two to five in each 
group. The eight gonads are pale reddish-brown. There is a ring of circular 
muscle fibres, occupying most of the subumbrella between the bases of the ten- 
tacles and the periphery of the stomach, and a strand of radial fibres runs from 
near the stomach out into each of the sixteen marginal lappets. 
Seven specimens of different ages. December 26, Male atoll, near Male 
island, surface. January 2, Suvadiva atoll, near Dandu island, surface. 
This form is very close to Nausithoe punctata, from which it differs only in 
the brighter color of the gonads, and the rarity of yellow pigment spots on the 
exumbrella, features of which the systematic importance is too slight to war- 
rant the establishment of a new variety. 
