RECENT FORAMINIFERA FROM THE WEST COAST OF 



SOUTH AMERICA 



By Joseph A. Cushman and Betty Kellett 

 0/ Sharon, Mass. 



During his recent collecting trip about South America, Dr. Waldo 

 L. Schmitt, of the United States National Museum, as the Walter 

 Rathbun Bacon travelling scholar of the Smithsonian Institution 

 obtained bottom samples from numerous localities. Those from 

 Juan Fernandez have already been studied and the results published.' 

 The results of the study of the samples collected along the west 

 coast of South America from Chile to Ecuador, inclusive, are given 

 in the present paper. While the samples are not rich in number of 

 species, nevertheless the number of specimens is often very large. 

 Very few of the species are identical with those of Juan Fernandez, 

 and the two faunas are very different also in the genera each con- 

 tains. Along the west coast the sample from Santa Elena, Ecuador, 

 is very distinct from those to the southward, as it contains tropical 

 forms which are like those of the West Indian region and these do 

 not occur in the samples from the colder waters farther to the south. 



The foraminiferal fauna of the west coast of South America is 

 very little known. In 1839, d'Orbigny published the results of his 

 South American voyage, the Foraminifera appearing as Part 5, of 

 the fifth volume of the Voyage dans I'Amerique Meridionale, with 86 

 pages and 9 very beautiful plates in color. It is not difficult to place 

 most of the west coast species by consulting the figures and espe- 

 cially the descriptions in this work. Some of the samples collected 

 by Doctor Schmitt are from the same locality as those from which 

 d'Orbigny collected. Especially the rather rich collections from off 

 Payta, Peru, have many of the older species present. Many of the 

 d'Orbignyan species have been allowed to lapse or have been placed 

 in the synonymy by later authors. The species from this region are 

 really very distinctive, as one can readily see when they are studied 

 and comparisons made with specimens from other areas. 



'Cushman and Wickenden, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 75, art. 9, 1929. 



No, 2796.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 75, Art. 26 



41200—29 1 



