XXIV.—Geonemertes DendyiDakin, a Land Nemertean, in Wales

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Abstract
The land nemerteans of the world comprise only twelve species and at present all are referred to the genus Geonemertes Semper. Most of the species occur in the Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysian regions, with a single species in Bermuda. European occurrences are rare and apparently due to introductions by man. G. chalicophora Graff, for example, is unknown outside glass-houses in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia (Stammer, 1934), and the Botanic Gardens, Dublin, Ireland (Southern, 1911). One other species, G. dendyi Dakin, which was originally described from a single female discovered in “a valley in the Darling Range not far from Perth,” West Australia (Dakin, 1915), was later found in glass-houses in the Botanic Gardens at Breslau, Germany (Stammer, 1934). More recently this worm has been found by us to be breeding in the open in wild situations around Swansea, Wales. We believe this occurrence to be the first record of a land nemertean established in the temperate climate of Europe.