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Internal Anatomy (Plate 104, fig. 2)
There are no specially thickened septa.
Alimentary Canal. The pharynx is small, rounded and strongly muscular and occupies the first four segments. There is a short thinwalled proventriculus in v joining the pharynx to an elongate, thinwalled, muscular gizzard in vi. The oesophagus extends from vii to xvii and has a single pair of small, rounded calciferous glands in xiii. The intestine commences in xviii and has a typhlosole.
Vascular System. The dorsal blood vessel is unpaired anteriorly, but becomes paired at xii/xiii, the two vessels remaining distinct throughout the remainder of their length. There are three pairs of dilated hearts in x, xi and xii.
Reproductive System. There are two pairs of minute testes and funnels in × and xi, and a single pair of small ovaries in xiii. A single pair of spermathecae occurs in ix. Each consists of a flattened disc-like sac opening to the exterior by a narrow duct, with a small ovoidal diverticulum opening by a slender duct into the spermathecal duct, close to the body wall. (Plate 104, fig. 3.) There is one pair prostates in xvii. They are convoluted tubular organs extending back through xvii and xviii into xix, where they terminate. I could find no penial chaetae. Two pairs of vesiculae seminales occur in xi and xii. They are made up of small round masses of vesicular tissue held together by a sheet of connective tissue.
The nephridia are very small and much convoluted and lie on the lateral aspects of the body wall in each segment.
In its small size and general external features this species fairly closely resembles R. similis Benham (1905a), R. parvus Benham (1905), and R. sutherlandi. However, it differs from R. similis in possessing a pair of prominent calciferous glands in xiii (R. similis has no oesophageal glands), from R. parvus in having no penial chaetae (R. parvus has extremely elongate penial chaetae in a sac extending through eight segments), and from R. sutherlandi in the possession of only one pair of spermathecae (R. sutherlandi has two pairs).
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Rhododrilus intermedius n.sp. (Plate 105, figs. 1–4)
A number of specimens of this large brown earthworm were found at depths of 0–12 in. in Mokau sandy loam under tawa, ferns and bracken on the steep sides of a gully ten miles south of Ohura beside the Stratford-Ohura road. Superficially the species might be confused with some Octochaetinae. The clitellum has a slight purplish tinge, but is otherwise not obviously differentiated from the adjacent segments and covers the dorsal and lateral aspects of segments xii–xviii. The specimen described below is 228 mm. in length and 10·5 mm. in diameter and has 175 segments.
The prostomium is epilobous.
There are eight chaetae per segment, arranged in pairs. On xxiv: ab = 2 mm.; cd = 3 mm.; bc = 4·5 mm.; aa = 4 mm.; dd = 9 mm.
A single pair of spermathecal pores with prominent tumid lips occurs in the groove 8/9, one on each side in line with chaeta b. The female pores open on xiv, a pore on each side slightly anterior and lateral to chaeta a. On xvii there is a very prominent conical papilla on each side in line with the chaetae ab and the combined male and prostatic pores open to the exterior at the apices of the papillae. Two penial chaetae can be seen projecting from each pore. There are two pairs of small tubercula pubertatis, a pair on xix and a pair on xx, taking the form of a small white oval pad posterior to the chaetae ab on each side of each of the segments.
Nephridiopores commence on ii and occur in a single series on each side of the body, in line with chaeta c. The first dorsal pore lies in the intersegmental groove 12/13.