182 Marine Investigations in South Africa. Vol. V. 



Systematic Position. 



Although it has not been possible to ascertain some important 

 characters, such as the condition of the copulatorj^ pore in the 

 female, the parasite described above agrees sufficiently well with 

 the definition of the family Ascidicolidte as given by Canu," and 

 resembles with sufficient closeness several types included therein, 

 to leave no doubt that it must be referred to that family. It 

 appears hopeless, in the present state of our knowledge of the 

 parasitic Copepoda, to look for an exact diagnosis either of 

 the family or of its constituent genera. At the same time the 

 new species is so distinct from any of those hitherto described 

 that it appears impossible to avoid the establishment of a new genus 

 for its reception. In the vermiform, or maggot- shaped, body and 

 non-natatory thoracic feet of the female and in the absence of 

 a brood-sac and of maxillipeds it approaches the genera Enterocola, 

 Aplostoma, Enteropsis, and Enter ognathus. From all of these 

 except the last it is distinguished (in the female sex) by the strongly- 

 hooked exopodites of the first four pairs of thoracic feet. From 

 Enterognathits it differs in the less strongly-marked segmentation 

 of the thoracic region, of which the somites do not overlap dorsally, 

 in the indistinctly segmented appendages, the reduced and palpless 

 mandibles, the vestigial non-prehensile second maxillae, and iti the 

 absence of the first maxillae. In the last-named character it agrees 

 with Aplostoma and Enteropsis, differing from both, however, in the 

 structure of the mandible, second maxilla, and thoracic feet, and 

 in many other details. 



* Canu, E.. " Les Copepodes du Boulonuais." Trav. Stat. Zool. Wimereux, 

 vi., p. 186, 1892. 



