Dimensions.—Length of the tubes 0.5 to 4.2, breadth 0.003 to 0.02.
Habitat.—North Atlantic, Station 253, Færöe Channel, surface, John Murray.
Genus 667. Aulographis,[[285]] Haeckel, 1879, Sitzungsb. med.-nat. Gesellsch. Jena, Dec. 12, p. 5.
Definition.—Aulacanthida with a veil of tangential needles, and with radial tubes, which bear no lateral branches, but at the distal end a verticil of simple terminal branches.
The genus Aulographis, the richest in the number of species among all Aulacanthida, differs from the preceding Aulacantha, its ancestral form, in the development of simple terminal branches, which form either a fork or a verticil. The branches are either smooth or spiny, but not ramified as in the following genus, Auloceros. Their distal ends are either simply pointed or bear a terminal spathilla, or a little crown of recurved teeth. According to these differences we may dispose the twenty-six species described into four subgenera.
Subgenus 1. Aulographantha, Haeckel.
Definition.—Terminal branches of the radial tubes simple, smooth, without lateral teeth and terminal spathillæ. Tubes usually thin and fragile.
1. Aulographis pandora, n. sp. (Pl. [103], figs. 2-9).
Radial tubes cylindrical, slender, straight or slightly curved, of equal breadth. Terminal branches of the tubes very variable in size and number (two to six, usually three or four), without lateral teeth and terminal spathillæ, slender, conical, slightly curved, directed outwards, twice to four times (rarely five to eight times) as long as the breadth of the tubes. This species is extraordinarily variable in the number and size of the simple terminal branches; the eight tubes, shown in figs. 2 to 9, are all found in one and the same specimen.
Dimensions.—Length of the tubes 0.5 to 1.5, breadth 0.01 to 0.03; branches 0.02 to 0.12.