WEST INDIAN STARFISHES 



61 



Panama. For the sake of comparison a revised description of 

 the latter, from the type, is given here. 



Asterinides modesta Verrill. 



Asteriiia modesta Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci., vol. i, p. 277, 1867. 

 Asterinides modesta Verrill, op. cit., p. 482, 1813. 



Plate xxvii; figures 1 — 2. 



Rays five, short. Dorsal radial plates are thin and closely 

 imbricated, with a convex outer surface; beneath concave, over 

 the isolated papular pore. A solitary, small, rounded plate 

 stands adcentrally to the papular pore ; it bears a tuft of small, 

 slender spinules like those of the larger plates. The latter have, 

 near their higher margin, a row, usually single, of small, slender, 

 acute, divergent, thorny spinules. Pedicellarise are lacking. 



The interactinal plates are few, convex, minutely punctulated. 

 Most of them bear a comb or fan of two or three slender spinules. 



Adambulacral plates have a furrow-comb of about three slen- 

 der, tapered spinules. 



Panama and Pearl Islands at low tide. (Yale Museum.) 



Genus Enoplopatiria Verrill. Type, E marginata (Hupe). 



EnopJopatiria Verrill, Kevision Asterininee, p. 480, 1913a. Starfishes N. 

 Pacific, p. 263, 1914o. 



Dorsal plates are imbricated; a median radial row is distinct 

 in the young. The principal plates of the papular areas have 

 the exposed portion usually elliptical, curved, or crescent-shaped, 

 prominent and spinulose; small interpolated plates are present 

 in small groups or solitary. Ventral plates have a fan of two to 

 five spinules; adambulacrals have a furrow-comb of three to five 

 or more spines. Pedicellarige are present on the dorsal plates, 

 especially on the small interpolated plates. 



In this group the papular area is plainly differentiated on the 

 rays ; it consists, in the adults, of about four or five median and 

 submedian rows of larger and broader, four-lobed or five-lobed 

 plates, curved and notched proximally for the papular pores, 

 and of two or three rows of narrower, obliquely placed, lobed 

 plates, having an angular proximal lobe, and notched proximally 

 over the papular, pore. 



