WIGLEY and BIRNS. DISTRIBUTION AND BIOLOCi' OF MVSIDS 



Burns and Wigley, Table 5) . The southernmost 

 sample is from off northern Florida. The other 

 two samples were taken 60 to 70 km east of 

 Georgetown, S.C. All specimens are males 4.5 

 to 5.0 mm long. They were all collected with the 

 Campbell grab in rather shallow water, between 

 32 and 38 m. Bottom sediments at these sta- 

 tions are composed of fine and medium sand. 

 These are the first records of this genus and this 

 s]iecies from the shallow shelf region off the 

 eastern coast of the United States. 



A closely related species, .4. a g ills, is an active 

 swimmer that migrates to surface waters at 

 night and descends to deep water before day- 

 break (Russell, 1925). Based on NMFS rec- 

 ords of ^. typica reported herein, and on Tatter- 

 sail's (1951) records, it appears likely that A. 

 tijl)ica in the shallow and moderately shallow 

 regions of the continental shelf may also dwell 

 on bottom during the day and rise to surface 

 or near surface waters at night. 



Subfamily MYSINAE 



Tribe ERYTHROPINI 

 Erythrops erythrophthalma (GiJes, 1864) 



Geographic Distribution 



This colorful mysid species has a widespread 

 distribution on the continental shelf and upper 

 portion of the continental slope in Arctic seas 

 and the North Atlantic Ocean. In eastern At- 

 lantic waters it extends from the Arctic south- 

 ward to the British Isles. In the western At- 

 lantic it has been reported from off Greenland, 

 eastern Canada, and off the northeastern United 

 States as far south as Delaware (Gardiner, 1934; 

 Bigelow and Sears, 1939; Tattersall, 1951; 

 Tattersall and Tattersall, 1951). 



The NMFS collection contains 187 samples to- 

 taling 4,573 specimens of this species (Figure 5; 

 Burns and Wigley, Table 6). These sami)les 

 were collected on the continental shelf and slope 

 between southeastern Nova Scotia and Long 

 Island, N.Y. By far the largest number of sam- 

 ples is from the southei'n part of Georges Bank. 

 A moderate number of samples were taken in 

 the offshore southern New England area south 



Figure 5. — Geographic distribution of Erythrops ery- 

 tJirnphthaJnia based on specimens in the collection at the 

 NMFS Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. 



of Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts. The 

 common occurrence of this species on Georges 

 Bank was somewhat unexpected in view of the 

 fact that W'hiteley (1948) found it to be a minor 

 component in plankton samjjles collected there 

 in 1939-41. 



Bathymetric Distribution 



This is an offshore species that occurs chiefly 

 in mid- to outer-shelf depths. The shallowest 

 record in published accounts that we have seen 

 is 12 m, reported by Procter (1933) for speci- 

 mens collected on the coast of Maine. Deepest 

 record previously reported is 275 m, from the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence (Tattersall, 1957). Depth 

 range for samples in the NMFS collection is 18 

 to 421 m (Table 1). 



A large proportion (78'^ of the samples and 

 90^^^ of the specimens) were taken at midshelf 

 depths, 60 to 100 m. The sample from unusually 



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