Description of Female

Length, 14 mm; depth, 3 mm; width, 3 mm. Length of 1st antennae, 1¼ mm; second antennae, 3¾ mm.

Gnathopods. First: As in female T. telluris but slightly more spinous. Second: Sideplate anterodistal angle almost right-angled, gills terminally Y-shaped; somewhat more spinous than in T. telluris, otherwise similar.

Localities. Chatham Islands, coll. H. F. Skey, April, 1908 (Chilton Collection), “burrows in supralittoral sand, an oceanic sandhopper”, McIntyre (unpublished MSS.).

Types. Slides C. 11 (male); C.14 (female).

Remarks. Chilton (1917) placed these Chatham Islands specimens in Talor-chestia telluris, suggesting that they were only a variant form of T. telluris connected to the typical form by intermediate specimens from Waiwera. A comparison of specimens of the “first”, or typical, form of T. telluris with the Chatham form reveals differences much more extensive than Chilton noted. In both forms, in animals of the same size but not necessarily the same age, the carpus of the fifth peraeopod is greatly expanded, but the distinctive forms of the male second gnathopods are well developed. This suggests that differences in gnathopod shape are not due to different stages of maturity within a single species, although the adult second gnathopods of T. telluris males are not markedly different from the juvenile second gnathopods of T. chathamensis males. There are, however, other differences also.

The general facies of T. chathamensis is much more spinous than T. telluris; the maxilliped carpus has a very obvious long end spine; the gills are much more slender and graceful than in T. telluris; peraeopod 1 sideplate is deeper and more rectangular; peraeopod 3 is comparativel) shorter, broader and more spinous; the basos posterior margin of peraeopod 5 is more spinous and crenulate; the merus anterodistal angle is produced downwards like a thumb overlapping the carpus anterior margin; the carpus expansion has stronger spines on the upper margin, and the posterior margin and surface have many more very small spines; the pleopods have fewer superficial rami segments and plumose setae; the 1st uropod has spines right along the peduncle ventral margin and 3 on the outer ramus ventral margin; the 2nd uropod has 4 spines on the peduncle ventral margin and the 3rd has a setose ventral peduncle margin.