i66 
Psyche 
[September 
Rec. Auckland Inst. Mus., 2, p. 73, 1922. Archey in — lc : 01F.e,B6.e 
Rec. Auckland Inst. Mus., 2, p. 51, 1936. 
Mesogeophilus wheeleri (Chamberlin). Attems, in Das Tierreich, Lief., 52, 
p. 195, 1929. 
Mesogeophilus kapiti (Archey). Attems, in Das Tierreich, Lief. 5 2, p. 195, 
1929. 
Geophilus provocator Pocock. Attems, in Das Tierreich, Lief. 52, p. 201, 
1929. (Retained in Geophilus but questioningly referred to Pleurogeo- 
philus ) . 
Australiophilus microtrichus Attems, Sonderabdruck, Ann. Naturhis. Mus. 
Wien, 55, p. 65, 1947. (New Synonymy: holotype seen). 
Type-species: Zelanophilus wheeleri Chamberlin, 1920. (= Ze- 
lanophilus provocator (Pocock, 1891)). (Monobasic and by original 
designation) . 
Pocock based provocator upon two male specimens, each with 69 
pedal segments, which the officers of the Challenger Expedition had 
collected at Wellington, New Zealand. His original description is 
composite, and he selected no lectotype. I have studied both specimens 
at the British Museum and find them to be conspecific with many 
non-typical specimens collected by Mr. P. M. Johns and his colleagues 
in New Zealand as well as with the typical series of wheeleri that I 
have studied at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard. I 
have selected one of Pocock’s specimens as the lectotype and have 
labelled it accordingly. When I found the Pocock specimens, their 
heads and mouthparts had been removed and could not be located. 
None the less, the remaining body parts, in excellent condition, are 
quite sufficient for the confident identification of comparison material. 
So far as is known, and excluding ferrugineus 2 from Zelanophilus, 
provocator is the sole species of the genus (sensu stricto) inhabiting 
New Zealand. The characters distinguishing it from pococki, Pocock’s 
original description, and Archey’s redescription of 1936 (p. 51) 
should readily facilitate its identification. 
According to Archey (1936, p. 52), provocator is very common 
throughout South Island but his records showed that it is known from 
only a few localities on North Island. Thanks to Mr. Johns and his 
colleagues I am gradually acquiring considerable material from all 
2 Dr. Archey (Rec. Auckland Inst. Mus., 2, p. 52, 1936) has included 
ferrugineus (Hutton, 1877) in Zelanophilus. I have examined one of Hutton’s 
syntypes at the British Museum and a clearly conspecific specimen collected 
by Mr. Johns and have come to the tentative conclusion that the species, at 
least until more is known about the whole generic complex, is more advan- 
tageously placed in Australiophilus Verhoeff, with whose type-species, 
longissimus , it is almost certainly congeneric (New Combination). The nature 
and systematic location of the Hutton species will be discussed in a forth- 
coming publication. 
