Earthworms and Their Allies

There is at present no doubt to be thrown upon the indigeneity of Plutellus. The species according to Dr Eisen show every sign of being genuine inhabitants of California and like certain New Zealand species such as the Tokea esculenta of Benham (referred by Michaelsen to the genus Megascolides) were eaten by the natives. If these genera were forms restricted to North America, that is not only with reference to the rest of America but to the world generally, there would be as I think no doubt about the practicability of making a Nearctic region. As it is, it seems to me to suit the facts of distribution better to regard the whole of the land under consideration as forming one great Neogaean region with three sub-regions, the North American, Central American and West Indian, and tropical South American. This region however will not as I take it include the southernmost extremity of South America. Here in Patagonia and in neighbouring islands we have a different earthworm fauna. It is in fact characterised by the sub-family Acanthodrilinae of which it is true some members of the genus Notiodrilus extend further north. I shall however defer this part of the subject until the more easy delimitations of regions are disposed of.

Tropical Africa is evidently to be included in a third region which will be defined by the Eudrilidae, Microchaetinae among the Geoscolecidae, and by the great prevalence of Dichogaster, a genus whose occurrence in other parts of the tropics is perhaps not yet explained satisfactorily. Also we may record as characteristic of this Ethiopian region a few peculiar genera such as Nannodrilus and Gordiodrilus. Alma being a partly aquatic genus is perhaps less distinctive and as a matter of fact it strays into the Palaearctic region, being found in the lower waters of the Nile. It will be observed that with this exception the limits of the Ethiopian region according to earthworms agrees with that delimitation afforded by a consideration of other groups since it stops short at the Sahara, leaving northern Africa to be referred to the Palaearctic region. At the same time we have an analogy with South America as concerns the southern extremity of the African continent; here we meet with Notiodrilus and allied Acanthodrilinae just as in Patagonia and – as also in that quarter of the world – these forms just stray into the Ethiopian region above – specimens of Notiodrilus being met with in Madagascar as well as in tropical Africa. This bit of Africa as it appears to me must also be cut off from the Ethiopian region and included in an Antarctic region. Madagascar offers a further problem. Are we to include this in Ethiopia or speak of a Malagasy region? Apart from a few forms which are at least possibly to be looked upon as accidental immigrants, such as members of the genera Pheretima and Gordiodrilus, the fauna of Madagascar consists mainly of many species of Kynotus. This genus, a member of the sub-family Microchaetinae, of the family Geoscolecidae, affines Madagascar to Ethiopia and leads me to place both in the same region though we may doubtless speak of a Malagasy sub-region.

We have now to consider the eastern region of the world comprising the two regions known generally to zoogeographers as the Oriental and Australian. Taking a large view of the range of sub-families and genera, and endeavouring to make the great regions of the globe more or less equal, it seems difficult to divide further a region which shall include all of this vast territory, and which may therefore be termed Indo-Australian. For we find as characteristic of the entire stretch of country the great majority of the genera of the huge family Megascolecidae. Indeed the largest sub-family of this family, i. e. the Megascolecinae, is, save for the mysterious occurrence of the genera Plutellus and Megascolides in America, absolutely limited to this area. Another sub-family, that of the Octochaetinae, is limited to it. So far as concerns the others of the sub-families of Megascolecidae it is only the Trigastrinae which occur here (the genus Eudichogaster and a few possibly introduced species of Dichogaster) and a scattered species or two of Notiodrilus of the sub-family Acanthodrilinae. Again there are a few and probably introduced species of the sub-family Ocnerodrilinae. More important still this region has confined to itself the family Moniligastridae; for a species described some years ago by myself from the Bahamas is doubtless an introduced form. We have a complete absence of indigenous Lumbricidae and Geoscolecidae excepting the aquatic Glyphidrilus of the sub-family Microchaetinae. It is true that by taking isolated tracts, even large tracts, of this great regional expanse a sub-division into well characterised regions can be apparently recognised. But in taking such a step we shall be confronted with the curious fact that it is rather neighbouring than widely remote sub-divisions which present the greater differences.

If we compare for example India and New Zealand we find in common such striking genera as Octochaetus, Hoplochaetella and Diporochaeta; whereas these genera are absent from the intervening islands of the great Malay archipelago. On the other hand Australia differs from the comparatively neighbouring islands of Borneo and others by the absence in those islands of the characteristic Australian genera such as Megascolex, Notoscolex, Plutellus etc. which are in their turn found in India. It is facts like these which render very difficult the apportioning of the tracts of country forming the eastern hemisphere into separate regions.

There is no doubt that the Malay archipelago and the adjacent coasts of Asia up to Japan differ from both India and Australia by the almost entire limitation of the genus Pheretima to them; but we cannot intercalate a region in the middle of another geographical area in this fashion!

The limitations of this great Indo-Australian region now demand consideration. The chief difficulty is offered by the islands of New Zealand and by some of the smaller islands lying far from but still in the neighbourhood of New Zealand. Are we to include New Zealand in this region? There is no doubt that the northern island of New Zealand is much nearer to Australia in its earthworm fauna than is the southern island. There are, it is true, a number of genera peculiar to New Zealand, which are Rhododrilus, Leptodrilus, Maoridrilus, Neodrilus, Plagiochaeta, Pereiodrilus, Dinodrilus, Dinodriloides, but these do not represent the whole of any family or even sub-family and they have all of them near relations in other parts of the region as has been pointed out – even to the peninsula of India itself. Again New Zealand contains members of the genus Notiodrilus, that characteristic Antarctic form. In fact New Zealand would appear to be a transitional zone between an Indo-Australian and an Antarctic region.

The last region into which the world can be divided according to its fauna of earthworms is an Antarctic. I am of distinct opinion that this region is quite necessary in spite of the views of some others. Although the genus Notiodrilus certainly, and Microscolex possibly, extend into the tropical regions of America, Africa, and Australia, these species are but few, and the bulk of the species and of the allied genus Chilota are restricted to the antarctic quarter of the globe; they also extend all over it, that is to say in the southernmost parts of South America, in the Cape region of Africa, in Kerguelen and the Crozet Islands, and in New Zealand, as well as in the Auckland Islands and other neighbouring islands. It is true that I have excluded New Zealand from this region on the grounds that it forms a debateable ground between it and the Indo-Australian. But apart from this part of the world the rest of the territories mentioned should be combined to form the antarctic region.

Having therefore arrived at a mapping out of the world into regions in accord with its earthworm fauna, it is desirable to ascertain what light the facts throw upon the geological and evolutionary questions with which the study of zoogeography deals. The existence of an antarctic region binding together such distant points as South Georgia, the Cape of Good Hope and Kerguelen Island, seems to argue strongly for the former extensions northwards of the antarctic continent so far north as to embrace these several regions of that hemisphere. In view of the facts relating to the danger of sea water to earthworms, to their lack of facilities for migration, other than unassisted locomotion, points which have been dealt with earlier, it is difficult to explain their range in the antarctic hemisphere on other grounds. The very fact that the actual earthworm fauna of New Zealand has led us on the whole to assign it to the Indo-Australian regions shows the inherent uselessness of the current view of zoogeography. For were we to leave the matter here the relationship of New Zealand to the regions of the world which lie to the south of it would not be apparent. However, here as in so many cases there is an antagonism between cut and dried systems and the indications of evolution.

This assumed existence of a former antarctic continent which connected Southern Africa and Southern America as well as various islands has perhaps a further justification in the distribution of the Geoscolecidae. This family is divisible into two well-marked sub-families of which one as has already been mentioned is limited to South America and another practically to Africa (the exceptions being species of the largely aquatic Glyphidrilus), while a third sub-family the Criodrilinae is more widely distributed – again in accordance, one may perhaps assume, with its largely aquatic mode of life. It is also conceivable that the genus Dichogaster is another example pointing the same way. The arguments for regarding this genus as an indigene of the East are not strong. But there is on the other hand no doubt that the Indian Eudichogaster is very closely allied to it. But it is by no means excluded from this argument to suppose that these Trigastrinae owe their likeness to convergence. At any rate there are examples of equally marked convergence which seem to be as nearly proved as can be in another though allied group. The New Zealand Neodrilus is to all intents and purposes a Maoridrilus in which one of the two pairs of spermiducal glands and spermathecae has disappeared. It retains the characteristic alternation in the position of the nephridia of Maoridrilus, and other structural similarities unite the two genera. In the same way species of Microscolex seem as easily derivable from Notiodrilus. Microscolex and Neodrilus are so near that had we no such hint of their origin it would be reasonable to place them in the same genus. They at least show a marked convergence.

It will be noticed therefore that the facts of their distribution agree, as it would appear, with the structure of the terrestrial Oligochaeta. The primitive characters of the genus Notiodrilus are to be seen in the double spermaries and glands appended to the duct, and the corresponding spermatheca, in the absence, or very slight development, of the papillae, so frequent in more specialised genera such as Pheretima, and in the general simplicity of many organs of the body which are more complicated elsewhere. As one would expect with an archaic form this genus is widely ranging, being found in all the principal land masses of the globe except in the Euro-Asiatic continent.

Furthermore geographical facts would at least be not contradictory to the view that this genus, and therefore the terrestrial Oligochaeta generally, originated in the Antarctic hemisphere and that in pushing northwards it has given off various descendants which survive in the various regions of the world. Basing our views of the possibilities of range among earthworms on the actual facts already dealt with, it would seem that the peopling of America from Africa or of Africa from America, if it has occurred, has not taken place through Europe and the north generally. For otherwise we should expect traces of the passage. It is true that we actually have Hormogaster as a possible sign that the Geoscolecidae have passed this way. But that is an isolated case and may be referred to the extension northwards of this particular genus rather than as an indication of a whole migration through those territories. Another conclusion which a collocation of the various facts brought together in this book appears to lead to is that the group of the terrestrial Oligochaeta is relatively speaking a modern one.

Convinced as we must be of the fact that range is only possible by unaided locomotion through continuous land areas, the fact that but few gaps occur in the range of a particular sub-family or lesser group seems to indicate that no great time has elapsed since the specialisation of these different forms. The dependence of earthworms upon vegetable mould also points in the same direction and furnishes an argument for the belief that these animals only greatly increased on the advent of abundant dicotyledonous plants, and perhaps indeed were actually contemporaneous with them.