58 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN 



interradial areas, where the plates are more closely imbricated 

 and different in shape. 



AsTERiNiDES Vcrrill. Type, A. folium (Ltk.) 



Asterina (pars) Liitken; Sladen; Perrier, etc. 



Asterinides Verrill, Eevision Asterinae, pp. 477, 482, 1913. N. Pacific 

 Starfishes, p. 263, 1914a. 



Margins of disk and rays thin, subacute ; rays short, depressed. 



Interactinal or ventral plates in regular oblique rows, each 

 with a fan-shaped group of two to eight small spines, usually 

 webbed. 



Dorsal plates of papular areas thin, nearly all of one kind, the 

 exposed part usually roundish, elliptical, or shield-shaped, 

 wholly or partly spinulose. Principal dorsal platesi are all 

 closely imbricated. Small interpolated plates few and mostly 

 solitary. Adambulacral spines form a fan or comb within the 

 furrow-edge, and another fan on the outer surface; ventral 

 plates and interspaces are not covered by a granulated dermis. 

 No pedicellarise occur on the dorsal plates nor on the intervening 

 dermis. 



This genus differs from typical Asterina, type, A. gibhosa,^^ 

 chiefly in lacking the characteristic pedicellariffi of that genus. 

 Its dorsal plates are also thinner and more scale-like, more close- 

 ly imbricated, and often partly naked and areolated. 



Asterinides folium (Liitk.) Verrill. 



Asteriscus folium Liitken, Vidensk. Nat. Foren., Kjobenhavn, p. 60, 1859. 

 Asterina folium A. Agassiz, Nortli Am. Starfishes, p. 106, pi. xiv, figs. 7-9, 

 1877. Sladen, op. eit., 1889, p. 393. 



Asterina gihhosa (Pennant). This, which is the type of the genus 

 and family, is from Southern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. 



It has the following characters: Dorsal plates, in the papular areas are 

 thick, subequal, imbricated; their exposed proximal ends are rounded, con- 

 vex, with the margin obtuse and bearing a cluster, usually of four to six 

 small, rather stout, divergent, blunt spinules, and more or less numerous 

 two-bladed pedicellariae, both on the plates and between them, nearly as 

 thick as the spinules; naked portion of the plates is finely areolated. The 

 median plates of the rays are scarcely larger than others; usually there is 

 a band of four alternating rows on the median area, with no special median 

 row, unless in the young. The plates of the median radial areas are shield- 

 shaped, with a pair of papular pores on the proximal edge, one either side 



