Peripatus in the Malay Peninsula. Records of the Raffles Museum, No. 21
This brief museum record by C. Boden Kloss documents two specimens of Peripatus (velvet worms) held in the Raffles Museum, determined by Professor W. J. Dakin as representing the two species then known from the Malay Peninsula (p. 167).
Summary
The note describes Eoperipatus horsti Evans, an exceptionally large specimen (62.5 mm in alcohol) collected 16 miles west of Johore Bahru at sea level on an open road in midday sunshine—an unusual microhabitat for a genus typically associated with shady forest and rotten wood. The second specimen, Eoperipatus weldoni Evans, was obtained by Dr. R. Hanitsch on Kedah Peak at 3,500 ft. in dead wood. Kloss notes that Dakin’s placement of Butler’s type specimen of E. butleri Evans (Larut Hills, Perak, 4,000 ft.) under E. weldoni is not reflected in Austin Clark’s 1915 distributional list, suggesting neither author recognised the species. The two Raffles Museum specimens thus represent the lowland (E. horsti) and montane (E. weldoni) elements of the Malayan fauna, with E. sumatranus known from Sumatra and undetermined material recently obtained from Sarawak (p. 167).