PERIPATUS, THE MOST INTERESTING 



ANIMAL 



Pe-rip-a-tus vSOunds like the answer to a charade 

 or a puzzle, and you may think that it really is 

 a puzzle when I tell you that of all the animals 

 on Barro Colorado Island my naturalist friends 

 ask first about it. * ' Did you really see PeripatUs ? ' ' 

 they ask. * * Is it found on the island ? If I went 

 there do you think I could find it?" 



I wonder if you ever heard of it before. Perip- 

 atus is not found in great numbers like the ants, 

 nor is it clever about its work, as they are. It 

 is not poisonous. It does not destroy property, 

 like the termites. It is not beautiful. It has no 

 market value, except as a pickled specimen on a 

 museum shelf. And yet to many people it is the 

 most interesting animal on the island. ' 



This is the reason : Peripatus is neither a worm 

 nor an insect, but a little of both. It is a sort of 

 connecting link between the two great groups of 

 animals. The centaur that the old Greeks 

 imagined, with the head of a man and the body 

 of a horse, was not nearly so queer a combination 

 as Peripatus. 



It is a very old family. Millions of years ago 

 the still older family of worms were changing the 

 style of their bodies a little. From the outside 



8 ^^3 



