Abstract
I SHOULD not presume to draw the attention of your readers to this much-discussed topic without having a new fact to contribute. The opportunity of loading still further the already overweighted scale which now dips so deeply in favour of the notion of a former northward extension of the Antarctic continent, has been afforded me by the kindness of Prof. Parker, F. R.S., of Otago, New Zealand. He has forwarded to me a few worms collected in Macquarie Island, which lies to the south of New Zealand, about half-way between it and the land of the southern continent. These belong partly to the almost worldwide Pachydrilus, and one species—a new one—is referable to the earthworm genus Acanthodrilus. The importance of this latter species is that it is firstly an Acanthodrilus, and secondly that it is closely allied to a group of Patagonian and South Georgian species of the same genus, and is less like any New Zealand form. It is to me a matter of surprise that Dr. H. O. Forbes, in his recent and important essays upon this question, has ignored the distribution of earthworms, which are so thoroughly wedded to the soil, and (except in a few cases) so impatient of sea-water. I have attempted to rectify this state of affairs in a text-book of zoogeography, lately issued by the Cambridge University Press. In Patagonia and some of the islands immediately to the southward, only two genera of indigenous earthworms, so far as is known at present, exist. These are Acanthodrilus and Microscolex. Of the former there are nine species, and of the latter five; but five species of Microscolex and two species of Acanthodrilus, in addition to those referred to, range northwards into Chili, which zoologically is indistinguishable from Patagonia. Let me emphasise the point that these are the only two genera which occur in these latitudes, save for a species or two of the European Allolobophoba, which is universal in range—thanks probably to direct exportation by man. In Kerguelen and Marion Islands but one species of earthworms has been found, which is an Acanthodrilus. In New Zealand there are nine species of Acanthodrilus, also six species belonging to genera that are very nearly akin to Acanthodrilus, and three species of Microscolex. The remaining six species of Microscolex are South and Central American to the extent of four, while the two remaining are from Tenerife and Algeria. Of Acanthodrilus, the only species left, after deducting those already enumerated, are one from the Cape of Good Hope, one from New Caledonia, and three from Western and North Australia. Besides these forms New Zealand possesses a single Perichætid worm and Schmarda's species, Hypogæon orthostichon, which I have recently (a “Monograph of the Order Oligochæta,” Oxford, at the Clarendon Press) referred to the characteristically Australian genus Megascolides. It is clear that, if the former northward extension of the Antarctic continent is not believed, some explanation of these remarkable facts is much wanted; on that hypothesis they are perfectly explicable.
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References
Vide NATURE, 1887, vol. xxxvi. p. 612. T. G. Bonney .
"Variations Périodiques des Glaciers des Alpes." S. A. C. 1890, p. 358.
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BEDDARD, F. The Former Northward Extension of the Antarctic Continent. Nature 53, 129 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/053129b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/053129b0
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