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No. VII.—PYCNOGONIDA. 
By GrorcE H. Carpenter, B.Sc. Lond., U.R.I_A., Professor of Zoology in the 
Royal College of Science, Dublin. 
(Communicated by J. Stantey Garpiner, M.A., F.L.S.) 
(Plates 12 & 13.) 
Read 21st February, 1907. 
Tue Pyenogonida described in the present paper were collected by Mr. J. Stanley 
Gardiner around the shores of the Maldive Archipelago, near the Amirante Islands 
(which lie W.S.W. of the Seychelles), and on the Saya de Malha Banks (which are 
situated S8.E. of the Seychelles and N. by W. of Rodriguez). Five species only are 
represented in the collection, but four of these appear to be new to science. One of 
them is a Pallenopsis dredged both in the Maldive and the Amirante districts. An 
exquisite little new Anoplodactylus is represented by a single Maldive specimen only. 
One specimen of a remarkable Colossendeis was dredged on the Saya de Malha Banks, 
while the allied genus Rhopalorhynchus is represented by a new species, several 
specimens of which come from the Maldives and one from the Amirante. The fifth 
species in the collection is a Phoxichilus from the Maldives, which cannot be separated 
from a pycnogon lately discovered on the Ceylon coral-reef by Prof. Herdman and 
described by the present writer, who would express his gratitude to Mr. Gardiner for the 
privilege of examining this interesting, if small, collection. 
Attention has been drawn by Gardiner (1906, p. 313) to the scanty attention paid in 
recent years to the tropical waters of the Indian Ocean by scientific explorers. It is 
not surprising therefore to find that out of the five species in the collection, four have to 
be described as new. Recent systematic work on the Pycnogonida has brought home 
to students that a great plasticity of structure characterizes this group, and that in large 
genera it becomes increasingly difficult with advancing knowledge to form definite 
specific diagnoses. The publication of new specific names is therefore attended with 
more than usual risk, but the very fact that variation is so wide makes the careful study 
of forms from any new locality of special obligation and interest to the naturalist. The 
wide range of some of the species described in the present paper—the Maldives are over 
1400 miles from the Amirante—can be matched in not a few Arctic and Atlantic 
pantopods, and is far exceeded by some of the southern Colossendeis described by Hoek 
(1881) from the ‘ Challenger’ collections. 
In the descriptive part of this paper, a few changes from current nomenclature have 
been introduced. Cole has lately (1904, pp. 256-7) drawn up a useful tabular statement 
