﻿ix. d, 3 Light: Some Philippine Scyphomedusas 203 



The museum has 27 specimens of this new variety of C. 

 polypoides collected by Dr. L. E. Griffin and Mr. L. D. Wharton 

 in Culion Bay, in October, 1911. They were present in great 

 numbers in the bottom of a boat slip near the Leper Colony 

 pier. I found them in the same place in May, 1913, and Dr. 

 Ernest Clements, the superintendent of the Leper Colony, tells 

 me that they are nearly always to be found there. This boat 

 slip is from 1 to 2 meters deep, is protected from storms, and 

 has a sandy bottom; it seems to be an ideal habitat for the 

 medusae. They were all found lying with the exumbrellar 

 surface downward and looked, as Keller 6 has remarked of 

 C. polypoides forma typica in the Red Sea, extraordinarily like 

 some large sea anemone. They are able to retain their hold 

 firmly by means of the sucker cavity. Indeed, when the pre- 

 served specimens are placed with the exumbrella down in a 

 glass dish, it is practically impossible to turn them over by 

 lifting on the arms and arm disk. The living medusas on 

 being turned over immediately begin to pulsate. At each con- 

 traction, the arms of one side are pulled farther in and bent 

 upward thus lifting the disk on that side. A final pulsation 

 causes it to fall over on the exumbrellar surface, the pulsations 

 cease, and the arms and margin are slowly adjusted. 



This medusa resembles C. polypoides forma typica in general 

 appearance, in the number of lappets to a paramere, in the length 

 and branching of the mouth arms, in the canal system, and to 

 some extent in the coloring. While it differs in some particulars, 

 such as in the shape of the central stomach and the lack of 

 pigmentation in the sense organs, I do not consider these dif- 

 ferences sufficient to warrant the making of a new species in a 

 genus which contains so many intergrading forms, and so I have 

 considered it as a new variety of C. polypoides to which I have 

 given the name culionensis as Culion seems to be a constant 

 habitat of the medusa. 



In coloration of the bell and in the arrangement of the 

 appendages of the mouth arms, this form approaches most 

 nearly to Keller's color variety "rosae." 



Cassiopea polypoides Keller (?). 



One immature medusa collected in Port Galera Bay in May, 

 1912, differs from C. polypoides var. culionensis in having 

 pigmented eyespots, in that the arms do not project beyond 

 the bell margin, and in the arrangement of the appendages 



e Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool. (1883), 38, 634. 



