ON SOME AUSTRALIAN OPILIONES. 



31 



3. Some Australian Opiliones. 

 By H. R. Hogg, M.A., F.Z.S. 



[Received December 27, 1919 : Read February 10, 1920.J 

 (Plates I.-III.*) 



1 am indebted to Dr. Charles Cliilton of Canterbury College, 

 Ohristchurcli, New Zealand, for a large collection of Spiders and 

 their allied orders, gathered over a series of years from most 

 parts of New Zealand. Amongst them are a number of Opiliones, 

 and these with a few others I am now recording. 



Of the three suborders Palpatores, Laniatores, and Cypho- 

 phthalmi, the two former only are represented — Palpatores by the 

 genera Mac7'opsalis Sor. and Fantopsalis Sim. of the family 

 Phalangiidse Thorell, and Laniatores by the families Triseno- 

 nychidie Sor. and Trijenobunidfe Pocock. 



Only three species of the genus Macroj^salis have been recorded — 

 the type M. serritarsis Scir.f from Sydney, N.S. Wales ; one 

 collected by myself at Macedon, Victoria, described under my 

 name by Mr. R. I. Pocock J; and 31. chilto7ii§ from Stewart 

 Island, N.Z., described by myself. 



The New Zealand specimens of this genus sent to me at 

 various times have all come from Stewart Island, the southern- 

 most remnant of the now broken land, and none from the Main 

 Islands, whereas Pantopsalis is widely distributed over both the 

 North and South Islands. Macropsalis was generally supposed to 

 be an Australian form, and as Stewart Island lies in the belt of 

 westerly winds which blow all the year round, and the genus has 

 not been recorded from any other part of New Zealand, it may 

 have been originally introduced from Austialia after the sepa- 

 ration of the islands. In the Stewart Island examples of this 

 species {M. chiltoni) the well-known apophysis at the distal end 

 of the palpal patella varies in size individually, but the banding of 

 the palp in yellow and white is always the same, and I look on 

 the specimens as constituting but one species. 



Of Pantopsalis probably ten species ma}^ be taken as established. 



The curious difference in the length and shape of the man- 

 dibles among the specimens of this genus is remarkable, and it 

 has been a matter of uncertainty whether this difference is 

 sexual, dimorphic in one sex, or specific. In the whole family 

 the sexes are not easy to distinguish accurately without spoiling 

 the specimens, and many of the species have been described from 

 single examples. Judging from the specimens in this collection, 

 added to the evidence hitherto available, it would appear that 



* For explanation of the Plates see p. 48. 



t " Opiliones," W. Sovensen, in Koch & Keyserling, Araclin. Austr., Suppl, p. 55. 

 X "Some new Harvest Spiders," R. I. Pocock, Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 1902, vol. ii. 

 p. 398. 



§ " Some New Zealand and Tasmanian Arachnidie," H. R. Hogg, Trans. N.Z. 

 Inst. vol. xlii. (1910), p. 277. 



