Fossil remains of a small owl found in eight separate localities on Bermuda ranging in age from the end of the last interglacial period (Marine Isotope Stage 5a, ca. 80,000 years ago) and up into the Holocene are described here as a new species, Aegolius gradyi, the only representative of its genus known from a remote oceanic island. This differed from its probable North American ancestor, A. acadicus, in its more robust hindlimb elements, smaller head, and a possible tendency for smaller wing elements. Its colonization was probably made possible by the unique conditions of suitable habitat for hunting, roosting, and nesting afforded by Bermuda, including the presence of woodpeckers (Picidae) that would have excavated nest sites suitable for the owls in the endemic palm trees (Sabal bermudana). From accounts dating to the early 1600s, the species appears likely to have persisted into the historic period.

Concepts from regeneration research and from the extraxial-axial theory (EAT) are synthesized to determine the growth zones and extraxial-axial body wall homologies of asteroids. It is found that the growth zone at the asteroid arm tip produces the actinal, abactinal, and ambital surfaces of the arm tip and the primary skeletal components of the asteroid arm. The plates added in the growth zone cause the arms to grow outward. Asteroid ambulacrals, adambulacrals, and marginals are formed consistent with the ocular plate rule, and all are axial skeletal plates. The development of actinals, intermarginals, and dorsolaterals is developmentally secondary to the development of the axial skeleton. Midradial abactinal arm plates may form adjacent to the terminal plate, consistent with the ocular plate rule, or they may form secondary to superomarginals, such as when midradial abactinal plates are occluded from the tip of the arm by left/right coming together of distal superomarginals. Extraxial skeleton is present as centrally located abactinal disc plating. There is a boundary between the abactinal disc plating and the skeleton of the arms. The evolutionary-developmental event that led to the outgrowth of arms was acquisition of distal signaling in the full periphery that surrounds the arm tip (full-surround distal-signaling).

Two new species of the genus Botryllophilus Hesse, 1864 are described on the basis of females living in compound ascidians collected in Madagascar. These copepods (Botryllophilinae) are readily distinguished from each other by body form. The copepods and ascidian hosts are as follows: 1) Botryllophilus spinulosus (metasome not inflated dorsally, with urosome shorter than prosome), in an undescribed, new species of Synoicum; 2) B. distinctus (metasome inflated dorsally, with urosome about equal to prosome), in Eudistoma sp. The two new copepods belong to subgroup 2 of female morphotype A (urosome 5-segmented) of the genus. Six Botryllophilus species (four known, two new) of subgroup 2 are compared to each other relative to their leg armature formulas of pattern II. The two new copepods belong to the Humes collection from Madagascar (1963, 1964).

A new species of Diplophryxus Richardson, 1904 is described from shallow waters of Chile infesting Alpheus inca Wicksten & Méndez G., 1981. This is the ninth species described in the genus. Diplophryxus richardsonae Chopra, 1930 from India does not belong in the genus and a new genus, Micropodiphryxus, is erected for it. Diplophryxus is now known to have a circumglobal distribution in temperate and tropical latitudes infesting host shrimp in Alpheidae, Palaemonidae, and Gnathophyllidae, whereas the new genus is known only from the Andaman Islands and Kerala, India, from hosts in Crangonidae. A key to species of both genera is provided along with a summary of all records from the literature.

This article contributes the descriptive detail for Multipseudechiniscus Schulte & Miller, 2011, a new genus in the family Echiniscidae named but incompletely described in the recent publication of a poster abstract. Multipseudechiniscus was separated from Pseudechiniscus based on the presence of paired pseudosegmental plates on each trunk segment; a long, flexible pharyngeal tube; and large spurs on the internal claws. The type species, Pseudechiniscus raneyi (Grigarick, Mihelćić, & Schuster, 1964) is re-described. The new genus has been collected only in California, Oregon, and Montana, U.S.A. and appears to have a regional distribution.

In Japan three freshwater Limnomedusae have been reported: Craspedacusta sowerbii, C. iseana, and Astrohydra japonica. The latter two species, though known only from Japan, have not been reported in ninety and thirty years, respectively. The type material for C. iseana is lost, and the only known specimens of A. japonica have recently been deposited in the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Craspedacusta sowerbii, on the other hand, is a cosmopolitan species found throughout the archipelago of Japan. Reports of C. sowerbii in China, Europe, and North America are commonplace in international publications, but particulars about the occurrence of this freshwater jellyfish, known as mamizu kurage in Japan, were previously not well understood by the international scientific community due to a lack of related English-language publications. The aim of this paper is to provide naturalists and citizen scientists in Japan with a means to both locate and identify mamizu kurage in all nine geographical regions of Japan. Here we provide an extensive history of the occurrence of mamizu kurage in Japan from the time of its first sighting in 1928 until 2011, while also providing personal observations on populations of C. sowerbii in Okinawa, Shiga, and Shizuoka Prefectures. The distribution list and map herein represent the most extensive compilation of data on the 217 reports of mamizu kurage in Japan, and should serve as the basis for future molecular genetics studies on its phylogeography to determine if all accounts correspond to a single species called C. sowerbii.

A new genus and species of primnoid octocoral, Heptaprimnoa patagonica, is described from deep water from the cold temperate/Subantarctic region off Argentina and Burdwood Bank. It is distinguished from other primnoid genera by having only seven rows of body wall scales.

To stabilize the taxonomy of the genus Porites in the western Atlantic and provide a foundation from which to launch future taxonomic research, neotypes for the coral species Porites porites and P. divaricata are chosen and Porites verrillii is proposed as a junior synonym of P. astreoides. Colony photographs and stereo scanning electron micrographs are provided of corallites of: 1) neotypes of P. porites (i.e., the P. clavaria holotype) and P. divaricata, 2) the holotypes of P. furcata, P. branneri, P. colonensis, and P. verrillii, and 3) a common P. astreoides. A brief taxonomic history of the genus is also provided.