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THE DISTRIBUTION OF ANASPIDES AND OOPERIPATUS IN TASMANIA 

 By Professor T. Thomson Flynn, B.Sc, University of Tasmania 



Thk two genera A iiaspides and Paranaspides, which are the Tasmanian members of the group Syncarida, 

 liave in recent years been the subject of great interest on account of their primitive organization, their 

 relation to certain fossil groups of archaic character, and their limited distribution. The former genus 

 was founded by Thomson for a small shrimp-like Crustacean found on Mount Wellington, Tasmania, 

 which he named Anaspides tasmaniensis ; later this was collected by G. O. Smith, and its distribution 

 extended to the Harz Mountains. Mount Field, ana Mount Read. 



The purpose of this note is to give some further information on the distribution of Anaspides. 

 It evidently does not occur in the Great Lake, but in 1914, during the visit of the British Association 

 to this locality, Anaspides was found in a small stream entering the Lake on the south-eastern side. 

 It is possible that the habit of Anaspides of moving about in the open waters or over the surface of 

 moss, etc., has contributed to its extinction in the waters of the Lake, which contains large numbers 

 of English fresh-water fish ; Paranaspides, which is only known from the Great Lake, has escaped 

 this fate, possibly through the protection afforded by its colour and its habit of living among weeds. 



In January, 1916, in company with some othei Hobart gentlemen, I visited Cradle Mountain, 

 Xorth-west Tasmania. Mr. Eustace Maxwell, a member of the party, brought m-j a number 01 

 Anaspides which he had collected between Barn Bluff and Cradle Mountain, at a height of about 3000 

 feet. These additional records bear out Smith's statement that Anaspides will probably be found on 

 most of the western highlands of Tasmania. 



In the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales for 1890, Fletcher rlrew attention 

 to a specimen cf Peripiius leuchartii in the collection cf the Macleay Museum, which was labelled as 

 coming from Tasmania. In 1894, Professor Baldwin Spencer recorded the discovery of Peripatus 

 insignis, Dendy, at the Dee Bridge in Tasmania ; this species had previously been found only in 

 Victoria. 



I have been unable to find any specimens of P. leuchartii in Tasmania, and, so far as I know, 

 Fletcher's solitary record remains unconfirmed. 



With regard to the other Tasmanian member of the group, which now takes its place in the genus 

 Ooperipatus, I am able to extend its distribution to the Great Lake, where some half-dozen specimens 

 were obtained in four or five days by a party of the British Association in 1914, and to the bank of 

 the Cascade Creek, in the neighbourhood of Hobart, where I found a single female in the spring of 19 id. 

 Further search at the time and since has not yielded any specimens. 



