140 ORIGIN, ETC., OF THE FAUNA. 
containing species ranging from Rio Janeiro to Central America ; Epiperipatus, also 
containing many species with approximately the same distribution as Macroperipatus ; 
and Peripatus (s. s.), restricted to species extending from J amaica through the West 
Indies to Venezuela. 
Oroperipatus, occurring elsewhere in the Andes of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia, 
is represented by two species in Central America, namely O. eisent from Tepic in 
Mexico and 0. goudoti from Mexico, without further particulars as to locality, 
although, as Bouvier suggested, it probably came from the western mountaius of that 
country. 
Peripatus has many Central American representatives, namely perrieri, from Vera 
Cruz in Mexico, geayi, ranging from Cayenne to Panama, both belonging to the 
subgenus Macroperipatus; biolleyi and isthmicola from Costa Rica; nicaraquensis 
from Nicaragua; edwardsii, extending from Cayenne and Venezuela to Darien and 
Panama, and brasiliensis, extending from Santarem on the Amazons to Panama, these 
five being referred to the subgenus Lpiperipatus. 
It may be noted that Oroperipatus and Macroperipatus are absent from the 
Antilles, and that only one representative of Epiperipatus has hitherto been recorded 
from those islands, namely from Grenada, the southernmost of the chain *. 
On the other hand, Plicatoperipatus and Peripatus (s.s.) are absent from Central 
America; while the latter subgenus, exemplified by peculiar species in Jamaica 
and Porto Rico and in most of the islands of the Lesser Antilles, exists also in 
Venezuela. 
CoNCLUSIONS. 
The Prototracheata are at the present time restricted to tropical and south 
temperate latitudes. They have become adapted to widely different conditions 
so far as temperature and climate are concerned. Their extension in the Southern 
Hemisphere about as far as the 45th parallel (Tasmania, New Zealand, Isle of 
Chiloe), and their existence at high altitudes within the tropics precludes the belief 
that their apparent absence from southern temperate areas in the Northern Hemisphere 
is due to inability to maintain themselves to the north of the Tropic of Cancer or 
thereabouts. The evidence therefore is in favour of the view that the Class was 
southern in origin. 
The present distribution of the genera Peripatus (sensu lat.) and of Opisthopatus 
(sensu lat.) attests a former union between Africa and South America. The 
last-mentioned genus also attests, though less strongly, a union between Australasia 
* This instance recalls the occurrence of the Armadillo (Dasypus) in Grenada, alone of all the 
Antilles. 
