TARDIGRADA OF SOME PACIFIC ISLANDS 



FIJI : ISLAND OF VITI LEVU 



On collecting in Fiji. The collecting in Fiji was done tinder unfavourable 

 conditions. The steamer stayed only for a few hours, and there was no time to get 

 advice as to the most suitable localities in the neighbourhood of Suva. It was 

 oppressively hot, and everything seemed burnt up by the sun. I first tried the shore 

 road, skirting a mangrove swamp for some distance, but found no moss or similar 

 plant. Then I made a short tour inland, passing through some banana plantations, 

 and visiting the reservoir. No moss was found in all this round, although some 

 patches of wood were examined. Then, returning disappointed by one of the main 

 roads, I came on a little ditch and a small trickle of water connected with it. A few 

 tufts of unpromising moss, silted up with gritty mud, were got alongside the ditch, 

 and in some scrubby bush bordering the streamlet there were some mosses on fallen 

 trees. This last was the only likely moss for the kind of animals I was seeking, and 

 it was very little in quantity. The moss from the ditch was very different from the 

 " dry " moss which is the happy hunting-ground of the student of " Moosbewohner " 

 (moss-dwellers) ; it was likely to contain only those truly aquatic species which are 

 not accustomed to being dried up periodically, and which were therefore unlikely to 

 survive the long journey which had to be made before they could be examined. 

 Nevertheless, when moistened and examined some months later, these unpromising 

 mosses were found to harbour a considerable number of microscopic animals. These 

 were chiefly Bdelloid Rotifera ; of these were about as many species as we got in 

 Hawaii. There were very few Tardigrada, only two species being identified. 



The Fiji Islands are situated in the Tropics, 16 south of the Equator, and due 

 north of New Zealand, which is distant about 1200 miles. The nearest part of 

 Australia is about 1500 miles distant. Though so far separated from these nearest 

 considerable masses of land, there are numerous intervening islands which would 

 assist migration, so that some correspondence with the microfauna of Australia and 

 New Zealand would not be surprising. The Tardigrada of Fiji are almost unknown. 

 We identified only two species, the cosmopolitan M. areolatus (a doubtful identifica- 

 tion), and M. nodosus, a species found in New Zealand. 



Previous knowledge. I can learn of no previous work on the Tardigrada of Fiji. 



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