On the earthworms collected during the 'Skeat expedition' to the Malay peninsula, 1899-1900 / by Frank E. Beddard.
- Frank Evers Beddard
- Date:
- 1900
Licence: In copyright
Credit: On the earthworms collected during the 'Skeat expedition' to the Malay peninsula, 1899-1900 / by Frank E. Beddard. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![\_F7'om the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, December 4, 1900.] On the Earthworms collected during the Skeat Expedi- tion to the Malay Peninsula^ 1899-1900. By Frank E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S. The Earthworms upon which I now report were collected by Mr. R. Evans of Oxford, during the 8keat Expedition in the Malay Peninsula. They belong for the most part to the charac- teristic and abundant Oriental genus Amyntas. The collection contains, however, a number of examples of the ubiquitous Pontoscolex corethrara and of a small Beuhamia. Since so many species of Amyntas are now known—1 allow 109 or so in my recently published revision of the genus—1 was not pre- pared for the large number of novelties that occur in the collection. It must be remembered, however, that this region of Asia has been but little explored from the point of view of its earthworm fauna. It is also important to notice that the greater proportion of the entire list of species recorded here are peculiar to the mainland, and do not, so far as is known at present, occur upon the islands of the Malay Archipelago; these latter are regarded by Michaelsen, and apparently v\ith justice, as the h-adquarters of the genus Amyntas. Further to the west, though still in the Oriental Region of zoogeographers, the genus becomes scarcer and scarcer, the forms occurring in India itself and in Ceylon being but very rarely peculiar formsand being far from numerous altogether. It is interesting to find that the condition hiiherto peculiar to A. stelleri, A. phahdlotheca, and A. hiseriaJis., of an increased number of spermathecsB in each segment, is also characteristic of A. minutus and A. polytheea described as new species in the present communication. The interest lies of course partly in the more widely-spread occurrence of this geoscolecid characteristic, but also in the fact that small species like the two described heie may show a character which is more intelligible in a large species such as A. stelleri^ w here there is more room for a reduplication of these c rgans. Another novelty of structure for the group which is recorded in the present communication, is the curious intersegniental position, and the single row, of numerous genital papillae, which is the principal characteristic of the new species A. evansi. I am not a\A’are that any closely similar arrangement of such papillae occurs elsewhere among Earthworms of this genus. The large size of the various organs belonging to the repro- ductive system is, as a very general rule, a marked feature in the ‘ P. Z. S. 1900, p. 609. 2 In Ceylon there is only A. taprobance (Beddarcl, P. Z. S. 1892, p. 163) and in India only A. alexandri (Beddard, P. Z. S. 1900, below), and A. travan- corensis (Fedarb, J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. xi. p. 435), which occur in those regions and are not found elsewhere.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22406475_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
