What's a Peripatus?

[Image courtesy of Dr. Steve Trewick, Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Palmerston North, New Zealand.]

Strictly speaking, Peripatus refers to a particular, single genus of animal, although in common usage its meaning has been broadened to include all the living members of the very ancient group to which it belongs, the Onychophora, sometimes called ‘velvet worms.’

One of the New Zealand species, Peripatoides novaezealandiae, has 15 pairs of legs with hooks at the end, two robust feelers, is velvety in appearance, comes in colours of blue, green, grey and brown, and may reach 80 mm in length. It preys on other small animals by squirting and entrapping them in a glue fired from openings beside the mouth. It lives in damp areas such as under moss, in rotting logs, behind the bark of trees, and in leaf litter.

A number of fossils, up to 500 million years old from the Cambrian Period, have been described which look more or less like onychophorans. Some, such as the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale form Aysheaia are rather similar to living forms.

For taxonomic information, refer to the Arthropoda and Onychophora pages.