Dendy. — On New Zealand Land Planarians. 235- 



Geoplana aucklandica, n. sp. 



The single specimen was given to me with the following- 

 description, evidently taken from the living animal : " Under- 

 surface of a rusty colour, with whitish median line. Upper 

 surface : ground white, with very fine black meandering 

 longitudinal lines ; a rather broad median longitudinal brown 

 band, with darker margins and central line. Extended : 

 length, 25, breadth, 3-4 mm. Cross-section half-round." 



In spirit the body is strongly convex dorsaily. The 

 ventral surface is nearly flat, but with a pair of slightly 

 prominent longitudinal ridges, one halfway between the 

 middle line and the margin on either side. The dorso-lateral 

 margins are sharp and well defined. The body tapers rather 

 bluntly both in front and behind. Length, about 14 mm.; 

 breadth, about 4 mm. ; genital aperture 4-5 mm. and peri- 

 pharyngeal 9-5 mm. from the posterior end. 



The dorsal surface in spirit shows a whitish ground- 

 colour, with a broad median band of dark-brown equal in 

 width to about one-fourth the width of the whole dorsal 

 surface. In this dark band the brown colour is intensified to 

 form a narrow median and broader marginal lines. Between 

 the dark median band and the margin of the dorsal surface 

 the ground-colour is thickly strewn with minute dark-brown 

 specks, more or less running together to form slender 

 meandering lines, but almost absent for a narrow space on 

 either side of the dark median band. The ventral surface is 

 of a finely mottled chestnut-brown colour, with a narrow 

 pale-whitish median band, where the brown mottling is less- 

 abundant, and a similar but less definite narrow pale band 

 along each of the longitudinal ridges before mentioned. Out- 

 side these ridges the chestnut colour darkens towards the 

 margins of the ventral surface ; inside the ridges it darkens 

 towards the margins of the pale median band. Anteriorly 

 the pale median ventral band becomes confluent with the 

 almost colourless anterior extremity, where the absence of 

 pigment is continued backwards for a short distance, so 

 as to make a deep indentation in the front end of the dark 

 mid-dorsal band. I was unable to make out the eyes satis- 

 factorily. 



This is a remarkably well-characterized species, so that I 

 feel perfectly justified in describing it from a single specimen. 

 The peculiar shape of the body recalls that of G. subquad- 

 rangulata, but the dorsal surface is more strongly convex ,_ 

 and the lateral surfaces are less sharply differentiated from 

 the ventral (in which I have included them in the above 

 description). 



Locality. — Old Cemetery Gully, Auckland ; coll.,H. Suter, 

 Esq. 



