1936 ] 
Peripatus in Jamaica 
119 
A NEW LOCATION FOR PERIPATUS IN JAMAICA 
W. Gardner Lynn 
The Johns Hopkins University 
The Island of Jamaica, B. W. L, is the habitat of two 
members of the Onychophora one of which, Peripatus 
stvainsonse Cockerell, is an endemic species, while the other, 
Plicatoperipatus jamaicensis (Grabham and Cockerell), is 
the sole representative of an endemic sub-genus. The his- 
tory of the discovery of these animals and the facts as to 
their known distribution in Jamaica have recently been re- 
viewed by E. A. Andrews (1933) and will be only briefly 
summarized here. The first recorded specimens from the 
island were collected by Philip Henry Gosse (1851) at 
Bluefields in the southwestern part of Jamaica, but were 
not at that time described as new. Forty years later 
(Grabham and Cockerell, 1892) Peripatus was again re- 
ported from Jamaica but from quite a different locality, 
near Bath in the southeastern portion of the island. These 
specimens were assigned to a new series. Peripatus ja- 
maicensis, and Gosse’s original collections were assumed 
to represent the same. During the succeeding years sev- 
eral hundreds of specimens were obtained from the Bath 
region and when critically examined by Bouvier they were 
found to belong to two distinct species. Peripatus jamai- 
censis was present in considerable numbers but the major- 
ity of the specimens were regarded as representing a new 
variety of the species Peripatus juliformis Guilding which 
received the name P. juliformis var. strains onas Cockerell 
and is so designated in Bouvier’s (1905) monograph of the 
group. Gosse’s original collection, of which three speci- 
mens were still extant in the British Museum, was also 
found to contain representatives of both these forms. Later 
in Clark’s (1913) revision of the American species of Peri- 
patus, a new sub-genus, Plicatoperipatus, was erected for 
the reception of the species P. jamaicensis and the variety 
