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V. On a Blind Prawn from the Sea of Galilee (Typhlocaris galilea, g. et sp. n.). 

 By W. T. Calman, D.Sc., F.L.S. {Communicated by permission of the Trustees of 

 the British Museum.) 



(Plate 19.) 



Read 1st April, 1909. 



1 HE British Museum has recently received from Mr. E-. Grossmann, of Tiberias, two 

 specimens of a blind Crustacean, which differs in some remarkable characters from any 

 species at present known. The specimens, I understand, were not actually taken in the 

 Sea of Galilee itself, but from a small pond near the town of Tiberias communicating 

 with the lake and fed by a mineral spring. From the fact that the animal is without 

 any organs of sight (so far as can be ascertained by external examination), it seems most 

 probable that it is a species of subterranean habitat, brought to the surface by the 

 waters of the spring. It is much less probable that the specimens entered the pond 

 from the lake, although this is no doubt the origin of some small fish, taken along with 

 the prawns, which have been identified by my colleague Mr. C. Tate Regan as 

 Discognathus lamta, a common Syrian species. 



Among the numerous species of subterranean Crustacea which have been described, 

 only a small number belong to Decapoda. The following list includes all the truly 

 subterranean species of which I can find record : — 



ASTACID.*. 



Cambarus pellucidus (Tellkampf) *. 



„ hamulatus, Cope & Packard *. 



„ setosus, Faxon f. 



„ acherontis, Lonnberg %. 



PaljEMONIDjE. 



Palamonetes antrorum, Benedict §. 

 „ eigenmanni, Hay ||. 



ATYIDyE. 



Troglocaris schmidtii, Dormitzer If. 

 Palamonias ganteri, Hay **. 



From this list have been omitted species like those of Euryrhynchus and some of the 

 species of Cambarus, which, while known or suspected to have a subterranean habitat, 

 have well-developed eyes, and may therefore be assumed sometimes to frequent the 

 surface-waters. 



* See Faxon, " Revision of the Astacidae," Mem. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard, x. (4) pp. 40 & 81 (1885). 

 t Faxon, in Garman, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard, xvii. (6) p. 237 (1889). 

 t Lonnberg, Bih. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handl. xx. Afd. 4, no. 1, p. 6 (1894). 

 § Benedict, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xviii. p. 615 (1896). 

 || Hay, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xxvi. p. 431 (1903). 

 ff Dormitzer, Lotos, iii. p. 85 (1853). 

 ** Hay, Proc. U.S. Nat. Mus. xxv. p. 226 (1902). 

 SECOND SERIES. — ZOOLOGY, VOL. XI. 13 



