WEST INDIAN STARFISHES 103 



Pedicellarias usually present, often large, usually bivalve, but 

 may be multivalve, foraminate, often fossate. They may occur 

 on any of the plates, or on the thick skin that covers them in 

 some genera {Anthena, etc.). 



This is a very extensive family, found in all seas, with nu- 

 merous genera. Many of the genera are found only in the deeper 

 waters. 



It may be divided into several subfamilies. See above. 

 Subfamily Goniasterin^. 

 Genus Goniaster (Agassiz), Gray (restr.). Type, G. cuspidatiis, 



Goniaster (pars) Agassiz, Prod. Mem. Soc. Neufch., 1836, 



Goniaster Gray, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. vi, p. 280, 1840. Type G. 



cuspidatus; Synopsis, p. 10, 1866 (non Ferrier, 1876, nec Sladen, 1889). 

 Pentagonaster (pars) Perrier, Eevis., Arch, de Zool., v, p. 24, 1876. Sladen, 



Voy. Chall., xxx, p. 264, 1889. 

 Astrogonium (pars) Miill, and Trosch., Syst., pp. 52, 56, 1842. 

 Phaneraster Perrier, Exp. Sei. Trav. and Talisman, pp. 334, 337, 387, 1894. 



(Type G. semilunat us = cuspidatus.) 

 Goniaster Verrill, Envision Genera, p. 150, 1899. Fischer, op. cit., 1911&, 



p. 167. Verrill, 1914a, p. 286. 



The form is stellate-pentagonal, or stellate with a broad disk 

 and short rays. 



The dorsal plates are large, polygonal or roundish, covered 

 with crowded, short, angular granules, with a larger marginal 

 series; sometimes they also bear pedicellariae. Between these 

 there are often, in adults, many small ossicles, usually bearing 

 groups of few granules. Papular pores are present between 

 most of the abactinal plates, except in the small interradial areas. 



One or more large, stout, conical tubercles or spines occur on 

 more or less of the dorsal margins and abactinal plates, in adult 

 specimens; or verruciform swellings, in the same situations, in 

 the young. In most adults these conical spines form a central 

 group on the disk and five large radial groups, but the number 

 of plates that bear spines is variable; sometimes they occur on 

 nearly all the dorsal plates. 



The marginal plates are large, thick, convex, not numerous, 

 and usually naked, except for one or two marginal series of gran- 

 ules, but they are more or less granulous over the surface in the 

 very young. They are more numerous in the ventral series. The 



