ANTARCTIC SPIDER.

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 April 1911, Page 5

ANTARCTIC SPIDER.

THE TEN-LEGGED SPIDER. INTERESTING RESEARCH WORK. [BY TELEGRAPH—SPECIAL TO THE STAR.] CHRtISTCHURCH, This Day. ' Several specimens of ten legged sea spiders were obtained by Mr D. G. Lillie, Biologist, of the Terra Nova, during the vessel’s recent Antarctic cruise.

Although they possess two more legs than ordinary land spiders, they have a very spidery appearance. Their bodies are long and narrow measuring about two inches and their sprawling legs are between two inches and a half and three inches. They have a uniform brownish-yellow colour. (Specimens were first discovered by Mr Hodgson, biologist of th© Discovery expedition in 1902, and his specimens were regarded as quite a zoological feature of Captain Scott’s first expedition. The exact position of these creatures in the world’s fauna has not been definitely determined just yet, but their relationship to the archnide, a class which incldes spiders scorpions and mites, has been established. Mr Little has a great array of bottles with preserved specimens at the Canterbury museum. They axe all zoological specimens and tqey will be sent to experts in the old country, who will describe them and work out their affinities to animals already described and classified. Several years will be occupied in the work. At the present time it is largely a matter of collecting and noting facts. Later on when knowledge of marine animals in the Antarctic seas is more extensive generalisations and theories will be made and some idea will be obtained of the, relationship between the animals that live in the waters of the Northern and South Hemisphere. ■ Up to the present the South Pacific ocean has been neglected in regard to these investigations and there is almost a virgin field for research.