256 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. VIII, July, 1954 
Nardoa frianti Koehler 
Nardoa frianti Koehler, Indian Mus. Aster- 
oidea, I 9 IO, p. 158, pi. 17, figs. 3, 4 
(Andaman Islands, 20 fathoms). 
LOCALITY: New Caledonia (1 broken spec- 
imen). 
Genus Ophidiaster L. Agassiz 
Ophidiaster granifer Liitken 
Ophidiaster granifer Liitken, Vidensk. Meddel. 
1871; 276 (Tonga Islands). 
LOCALITY: Seleo Island, about 5 miles off 
the northern New Guinea coast at Aitape, 
about midway between Hollandia and We- 
wak, coral reef, Capt. Marvin Clinton Meyer 
(2 specimens). 
Ophidiaster pustulatus (von Martens) 
Linckia pustulata von Martens, Arch. f. Natur- 
gesch. 32(1): 62, 1866 (Flores; Amboina). 
locality: Guam, Oco Point, David H. 
Johnson, May, 1945 (2 specimens). 
Ophidiaster perplexus sp. nov. 
DESCRIPTION: Rays 5, equal, with parallel 
sides until near the tip, well arched aborally, 
hat orally below the marginals; interbrachial 
angles acute. R = 33 mm., r = 5.5 mm., 
R = 6r; breadth of arms at base 6 mm. 
At the base of the rays on the aboral surface 
there are three rows of plates between the 
marginals, but almost immediately additional 
rows appear by branching of the median row 
and its successive branches, so that in the 
outer half of the rays there are seven or eight 
rows. At the base of the rays all the aboral 
plates are of about the same size, the marginals 
only very slightly larger than the others, but 
on the outer part of the rays, while the plates 
of the rows adjoining the superomarginals 
are of about the same size as the latter or 
only very slightly smaller, those of the inner 
rows are considerably smaller and more or 
less irregular in arrangement. 
All the plates are completely covered with 
a continuous coating of very small contiguous 
spherical granules; a small group of granules 
on the summit of each plate, or, especially on 
the marginals, a single granule, are slightly 
though inconspicuously larger than the others. 
The aboral and marginal plates are slightly 
tumid, each longitudinal series forming a low 
convex ridge, the ridges and the individual 
plates in the ridges being separated from each 
other by similar shallow though prominent 
furrows. 
The marginals number about 32; the supero- 
marginals are directly above the inferomar- 
ginals, and the plates of the outermost aboral 
rows are for the most part directly above the 
superomarginals. The terminal plate is aboral, 
somewhat flattened-hemispherical, bare, with 
4-6 tubercles in an irregular longitudinal 
series. 
In the center of the disc there is a group 
of about 15 irregularly arranged plates en- 
closed in a pentagon of 10 subequal larger 
plates which are broader than long. The ra- 
dially situated plates in the pentagon are 
followed by the median row of aboral plates. 
The plate in this row immediately following 
the radial plate in the pentagon is somewhat 
larger than those succeeding, and the next 
following plate may be slightly enlarged. The 
interradial plates in the pentagon are separated 
from the interradial superomarginals by two 
smaller plates similar to and contiguous with 
the plates of the lateral rows of the aboral 
surface between the median row and the 
superomarginals. 
The madreporite, which is about the size 
of the adjacent interradial plate in the central 
pentagon, is halfway between the center of 
the disc and the interradial angle. There is 
only a single madreporite. 
The papulae appear to be single or in small 
groups of 2 or 3, but are difficult to dis- 
tinguish between the granules. 
On the oral surface of the rays there are at 
the bases of the rays 4 rows of plates between 
the adambulacrals and the inferomarginals. 
