190 Transactions. — Zoology. 



Art. XVIII. — Note on a Neio Variety of Peripatus novae- 



zealandiae, Hutton. 



By Arthur Dendy, D.Sc, Professor of Biology in the Can- 

 terbury College, University of New Zealand. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 5th September, 



1894.'] 



Through the kindness of Mr. H. Suter I have recently 

 received three specimens of Peripatus from Stratford, in the 

 North Island of New Zealand, a locality from which Peri- 

 patus has not, so far as I know, been hitherto recorded. The 

 specimens were given to me in spirits of wine, in an admirable 

 state of preservation, having evidently been killed by drown- 

 ing. They are of remarkably large size, one in particular 

 measuring 2Jin. long in its present state (exclusive of the 

 antennae), and being broad in proportion. 



Their most remarkable peculiarity, however, lies in the fact 

 that they all possess sixteen pairs of claw-bearing legs, instead 

 of the usual fifteen. This is a very remarkable fact, for no 

 Australasian species of Peripatus has yet been found to vary in 

 the number of its appendages, although many, especially of 

 P. nova-zealandia, have been examined. Sedgwick says, in 

 his monograph of the genus, "The number of legs are con- 

 stant in all specimens " in the Australasian species. He further 

 gives this number as fifteen pairs. I have already shown, how- 

 ever, that a Victorian species, which I have described under 

 the name of P. insignis, has only fourteen pairs, and now we 

 have a variety of the New Zealand species with sixteen. 

 Hence the exact number of the legs can no longer be regarded 

 as a distinguishing character of the Australasian species. 



Through the kindness of Captain Hutton and other friends, 

 I have been enabled to examine a considerable number of speci- 

 mens of the ordinary New Zealand form, with fifteen pairs of 

 legs, coming both from the North and the South Island. I 

 have also carefully dissected, and examined the external 

 characters, including the jaws, of the new variety, and can 

 detect no point of difference except in the large size and the 

 number of legs. The general colour of the three specimens is 

 dull indigo-green, varied with more or fewer orange-coloured 

 papillae. It is interesting to note that, in spite of the in- 

 creased number of legs, the genital aperture is still situated 

 between those of the last pair, and the special nephridial 

 apertures are still on the fourth and fifth legs ; hence, one is 

 inclined to suppose that the new pair of legs has been inter- 

 calated somewhere between the fifth and the fifteenth of 

 the ordinary form. 



