1941] 
Peripatus geayi 
111 
PERIPATUS ( MACROPERIPATUS ) GEAYI 
IN PANAMA 
By Charles T. Brues 
Biological Laboratories, Harvard University 
As the Caribbean islands and adjacent mainland have been 
more carefully explored by zoologists interested in terres- 
trial invertebrates, information on the distribution of 
Onychophora in this area has slowly accumulated. A quite 
considerable number of species are now known to occur 
there, but as these animals are by no means abundant, the 
geographical range of the several species is poorly known. 
I have recently received from Dr. Ralph Buchsbaum a 
specimen from El Cermano, near the west coast of Panama, 
north of Panama City. It is one of a series of five obtained 
for him by a friend of Mr. James Zetek. Dr. Buchsbaum 
had them under observation and they served him as subjects 
for some remarkably fine colored motion pictures as well as 
for black and white photographs. 
This species is Macroperipatus geayi described by Bouvier 
in his “Monographie des Onychophores” in 1907 from the 
coast of Guiana. It was later reported from Panama by 
Clark 1 on the basis of a specimen from La Chorrera. The 
present writer recorded it from the Santa Marta Moun- 
tains, Colombia 2 on the basis of two collections. 
As the color of all the Neotropical species fades rapidly in 
alcohol, Bouvier was unable to ascertain the color of M. geayi 
in life, and noted no conspicuous pattern. Clark mentions 
“a broad, transverse, obscure yellow band” just behind the 
head. The specimens seen by me from Colombia also pos- 
sessed the pale band or “necktie,” with one exception. In 
the living ones observed by Dr. Buchsbaum the band is cream 
colored, but soon fades to nearly white in alcohol. The 
iSmithsonian Misc. C'oll., vol. 60, no. 17, p. 2 (1913). 
2 Psyche, vol. 32, p. 160 (1925). 
