A New Peripatus from New Zealand

Abstract

As the genus Peripatus is always regarded with exceptional interest by zoologists, I should like to make known through the medium of your column's the discovery of a new and very beautiful species in the dense beech forest at the head of Lake Te Anau, in the South Island of New Zealand. I found it a few days ago in the decaying trunks of trees (presumably beech), and have since collected between twenty and thirty specimens. The species resembles the well-known P. novaezealandiae in shape and size, but is at once distinguished both from it and from the other New Zealand species, P. sutteri, by the possession of only fourteen pairs of walking legs, and by the presence on the dorsal surface of fifteen pairs of green spots arranged segmentally, one pair over each pair of legs, and one pair over the oral papillæ. The general coloration of the dorsal surface is dark grey mottled with orange, with a dark median band and a black or nearly black triangular patch between each two successive green spots on each side. There are also pale orange or whitish papillæ, very regularly arranged. The ventral surface is mottled grey or violet, with pale areas between the legs. The antennæ are grey, ringed with orange. One specimen is almost jet black on the dorsal surface except for he green spots. Adult females are at once distinguished by the presence of an elongated protuberance between the legs of the last pair. This organ is yellowish in colour and bears the genital aperture, closely resembling the ovipositor of the egg-laying Victorian species, P. oviparus. The males are rather smaller than the females, and have a white papilla at the base of each leg of the last nine pairs. I propose for this species the name Peripatus viridimaculatus.