281 



Notes on Indiana Earthworms. 



H. V. Heimburger. 



The great group of animals known commonly as earthworms, com- 

 prises four families of the order Oligochaeta : the Moniligastridae, the 

 Megascolecidae, the Glossoscolecidse and the Lumbricidse. Three of these 

 families are represented in our fauna. 



At the present time there are more than a thousand well recognized 

 species of earthworms known. By far the larger number of these species 

 have been described during the last twenty years. Most of the work on 

 this group has been done by Europeans, chief among whom is Michaelsen of 

 Hamburg, whose publications make up the bulk of the recent literature on 

 the group. Professor Frank Smith of the University of Illinois has worked 

 on the group in this country and Eisen, a Swede who lived for several 

 years in San Francisco, has worked on West and Central American species. 1 

 Very little is known of the earthworm fauna of the Central States. Only 

 about fifty species are known to occur in the United States,- this scarcity 

 of forms being due in part to lack of study and partly to the actual scarcity 

 of species. 2 



It has been pointed out by Beddard 3 and Michaelson 4 that the earth- 

 worms are in important group for the Zoogeographer. Arldt, 5 in a recent 

 paper, shows the value of the group for the paleo-geographe'r and gives 

 many of the facts of distribution now known as well as indicating the 

 value of the group in theoretical considerations within the fields of 

 geography and geology. 



The Moniligastridse is a small family limited to Borneo, Ceylon, 

 Southern India and neighboring islands. This family is regarded as the 

 most ancient of the group. 



'Eisen; American Oligochaetes with special reference to those of the Pacific Coast and Adjacent 

 Islands. Proceedings Calif. Acad. Science Vol. II, No. 2, 1900. 



2 Frank Smith; Earthworms From Illinois. Trans. Ills. Acad. Science. 1912. 



'Beddard; A Textbook of Zoogeography. Cambridge, 1895. 



'Michaelsen; Die geographische Verbreitung der Oligochaeten. Berlin, 1903. 



'Arldt; Die Ausbreitung der terricolen Oligochaeten in Laufe der erdgeschichtlichen Entwicklung 

 des Erdreliefs. Zool. Jahrb. Abt. f Syst. Geog. u Biol. Bd. 26, pp. 285-318. 1908. 



