ON A NEW NEMERTEAK. 567 



39. Fauna of West Australia. — III. A new Nemertean, 

 Geonemertes dendyi, sp. n., being the first recorded 

 Land Nemertean from Western Australia. By W. J. 

 Dakin, D.Sc, F.Z.S., Professor of Biology in the 

 University of W. Australia. 



[Received August 5, 1915 : Read Novejiibev 9, 1915.] 

 (Text-Hguve 1.) 



Index. 



Systematic ; Page 



Geonemeries dendt/i, sp. ii 567 



Stuuctuee 569 



Land nemerteans are notoiiously rare animals, and it is there- 

 foie pcirticulai-ly interesting to record a new species from the 

 Western State of Australia. The record is interesting too, becauise 

 the other known species in Australia comes from Victoria and Kew 

 South Wales, about two thousand miles distant from this western 

 locality. The country between can scai'cely be called suitable for 

 the distribution of such an organism. The animal was discovered 

 by the author, whilst searching for Peripatus, in a valley in the 

 Darling Range not far from Perth. Land nemeiieans are cryp- 

 tozoic in habit aiid occur in the same situations as Perij^atus and 

 land planarians, yet no specimens have previously been discovered 

 in West Australia, although many scientists have made collections 

 of these latter Ciyptozoa . I, myself, have looked for PerijJatus and 

 land planarians in the Darling Ranges, and othei- parts of West 

 Australia, on very many occasions without ever meeting with a 

 specimen of Geonemertes. This first recoi'd doesuot indicate any 

 greater abundance, for only one isolated individual- — a mature 

 , female — was found. It is probable, however, that in the keen 

 search for Peripatus (when the attention is concentrated on 

 distinguishing this animal from its background) specimens of the 

 nemertean have been passed over as land planarians. Such, in 

 fact, would have been the case this time, if the animal had not 

 j^rotruded a long proboscis on being disturbed. • 



The example belongs to the genus Geonemertes, and I have 

 much pleasure in naming the species after Professor Dendy, who 

 was not only the first to discover land nemerteans in Australia 

 and Kew Zealand, but w^ho elucidated many points in the anatomy 

 of the genus. The previously recorded species from Australia 

 and New Zealand are Geoneviertes australiensis Dendy, occurring 

 in Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania ; and Geonemertes 

 novce-zealandice Dendy, a very rare species occurring in South 

 Island, New Zealand. The new form G. dendyi is more like 

 G. austrcdiensis than the New Zealand species. 



Hcdyitat. — The specimen was found under a small log in a 

 rather damp situation, about two yards from a small stream, in 



