WEST INDIAN STARFISHES 



189 



have more fully developed fascioles. The lower marginals have 

 the spines in a central row or group, not submarginal. There is 

 no differentiated median radial series of dorsal plates; nor any 

 notable number of secondary ossicles, so evident in Blakiaster \ 

 nor any median radial area destitute of papulae, as in the latter. 

 There are well defined fascioles between the adambulacral and 

 interactinal plates, not found in the latter ; and the adambulacral 

 spines of the adoral plates are deeply sunken in the groove, as in 

 Perseplwiidster, but not in Blakiaster. The abactinal plates are 

 thinner, more regularly stellate, and more delicately articulated 

 by the slender radial lobes than in the latter, so that the test is 

 more flexible. No pedicellarige were found in the type of Bim- 

 odaster. 



In some of these characters Bunodaster is near to Persepiion- 

 aster, but the latter lacks the odd interactinal plates, found in 

 Blakiaster and in Leptychaster. 



From the latter Bunodaster diifers in the characters of the 

 dorsal plates ; in the less profoundly f asciolated grooves between 

 the marginal plates ; and in other characters ; but it is perhaps as 

 nearly allied to the latter as to Blakiaster. The genus Bumdas- 

 ter is certainly closely allied to Blakiaster, Persephonaster, and 

 Leptychaster, especially to the two former. 



Perrier, in his later report (1894), has united Blakiaster with 

 Leptychaster, but it seems to me sufficiently distinct. In this 

 genus the interactinal plates are not arranged in definite radial 

 series, nor do they have well developed fascioles between them. 

 On the contrary, they have a rather irregular, crowded, tessel- 

 ated arrangement, the plates being roundish or polygonal, pretty 

 closely united, without the deep, sutural, fasciolated furrows 

 found in Leptychaster. The marginal plates, also, have only ru- 

 dimentary fascioles. The jaws are stout and evenly convex, in- 

 stead of thin and carinate. The dorsal plates are larger, round- 

 ed, more convex, more regular, and less paxilliform. Lep- 

 tychaster does not have spines on the inf eromarginal plates. 

 Blakiaster conicus Perrier. 



Blakiaster conicus Per., 1881, p. 28; Etoiles de Mer, p. 265, pi. ix, fig. 2, 

 1884. Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad. Sci., vol. x, p. 218, pi. xxvii, fig. 7, 

 1899. 



Leptopty chaster conicus Per,, Exp. Trav. et Talism,, p. 243, 1894. 

 BlaTciaster conicus Fisher, op. cit., 1911, p. 161, pi. i; op. cit. 19115, p. 40, 

 note. Verrill, op. cit., 1914a, pp. 322, 371. 



