BATOCRINIDAE 
41 
Family BATOCRINIDAE Wachsmuth and Springer 
Monocyclic. Base hexagonal. BB 3, equal. Lower brachials and inter- 
brachials incorporated in dorsal cup; radials in contact except at anal side; 
proximal anal plate in line with RR, heptagonal, followed by three in second 
range; rays usually branching within the cup, and the free arms simple, pin- 
nulate; first primibrach quadrangular except in Periechocrininae. Ordovician 
to Carboniferous. 
Jaekel, Phylogenie und System, 1918, p. 34, goes back to the plan of Angelin, and while 
rejecting Monocyclica and Dicyclica as grand divisions of the crinoids, proposes monocyclic 
suborders based upon the number of basals ; but after listing those of 4 and 5 BB as Tetramera 
and Pentamera, he throws the remainder, whether with 3, 2, or undivided basals, into a 
single suborder, Miomera. Under this he puts together all Batocrinidae and Actinocrinidae 
into the younger family, Actinocrinidae, a short-lived derivative of the other, on the ground 
that the distinguishing character between them, viz. : that the first has three and the last two 
anals in the second range “ would scarcely be sufficient even for separating genera.” In this 
he completely ignores the almost unrivaled constancy of the characters by which these two 
families are separated according to the accepted classification. 
It is now well known that among the crinoids modifications of the anal structures yield 
characters of the highest taxonomic value. A character in zoological classification derives 
its value, as has been repeatedly pointed out by the most eminent authorities, not from its 
physiological importance, but from the uniformity with which, however unimportant func- 
tionally, it prevails throughout many different species, and is common to a great number of 
forms and not common to others. Here the family Batocrinidae, extending from the Ordo- 
vician to the later Lower Carboniferous, with nearly 300 species, distributed among 24 genera 
which differ among themselves by many striking and conspicuous features, is held together 
by a definite structure of the anal aiea, without the slightest deviation save an occasional 
sporadic specimen. A perfectly evident transitional genus leads to the Actinocrinidae, the 
character of which is equally constant and invariable in over 100 species, and 7 thoroughly 
well defined genera. 
No one looking at a complete collection exhibiting the entire assemblage of genera and 
species under these two forms, or at the ample illustrations of them as given in the Camerata 
monograph, will doubt for a moment that the far-reaching characters by which they are 
defined mark the lines of descent. For an author of a systematic work to say that they would 
hardly serve for separating genera, is pure dogmatic assertion, made without the slightest 
consideration of the facts. 
Subfamily CARPOCRININAE Bather 
BB 3; RR rather large; IBr quadrangular; IIBr usually passing into the 
free arms, mostly 2, occasionally 3, 4, or 5 to the ray; iBr definitely arranged; 
anal plates in vertical row; tegmen composed of numerous small plates, with 
orals in the center compressed ; column round. 
