Abstract
IN the anniversary Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. Theodore Lyman gives an account of a structural feature hitherto unknown among Echinodermata which he has discovered in deep-sea Ophiurans. The remarkable structures described appear under the microscope as little tufts resembling bunches of simple Hydroids on the sides of the arms of certain Ophiurans. On careful examination these tufts are found to be bunches of minute spines, each inclosed in a thick skin-bag, and in form resembling agarics, or parasols with small shades. They are arranged in two or even three parallel vertical rows, and in this respect the animals on which they occur differ from all other Ophiuridæ known, for all others possess a single row only of articulated spines. The peculiar tufts, which are apparently homologous with pedicellariæ, are attached to the outer joints of the arms, near the margins of the side arm-plates. Two new genera, Ophiotholia and Ophiohelus, closely allied to Ophiomyces, are described in which these curious appendages occur. The species of the genera are soft with imperfect calcification. Examples of Ophiotholia were dredged off Juan Fernandez, in 1825 fathoms, and of Ophiohelus off Barbadoes in 82 fathoms, and off Fiji in 1350 fathoms.
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Deep-Sea Ophiurans . Nature 23, 464 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/023464a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023464a0