Rediscovery of Bathynella chappuisi Delachaux in Britain

Abstract

IN 1927 Lowndes discovered Bathynella chappuisi Delachaux in the Bath Oolite quarries at Corsham in Wiltshire¹. Since 1932 this genus has not been reported from Britain although it and related genera have been recorded from the Continent² and Japan³. In February of this year, however, a single specimen of Bathynella chappuisi Delachaux was collected in some mud and sand taken from a spring-fed cattle trough in a pasture in Wytham Park, Berkshire. (Dr. I. Gordon of the British Museum has tentatively confirmed this identification.) Further collections, some made at night, have failed to produce any more specimens, although the common subterranean amphipod Niphargus aquilex Schiödte has turned up regularly.