  VIRGOHI21 is an HI source detected in the Virgo Cluster survey of Davies et
al. (2004) which has a neutral hydrogen mass of 10^8 M_solar and a velocity
width of Delta V_20 = 220 km/s. From the Tully-Fisher relation, a galaxy with
this velocity width would be expected to be 12th magnitude or brighter; however
deep CCD imaging has failed to turn up a counterpart down to a
surface-brightness level of 27.5 B mag/sq. arcsec. The HI observations show
that it is extended over at least 16 kpc which, if the system is bound, gives
it a minimum dynamical mass of ~10^11 M_solar and a mass to light ratio of
M_dyn/L_B > 500 M_solar/L_solar. If it is tidal debris then the putative
parents have vanished; the remaining viable explanation is that VIRGOHI21 is a
dark halo that does not contain the expected bright galaxy. This object was
found because of the low column density limit of our survey, a limit much lower
than that achieved by all-sky surveys such as HIPASS. Further such sensitive
surveys might turn up a significant number of the dark matter halos predicted
by Dark Matter models.
