Hatteras to Rich Inlet, around Cape Lookout, is 

 130 nmi (240 km). A narrow, southerly longshore 

 current of Virginian water continues past Cape 

 Hatteras (Bumpus 1973), reaching well beyond 

 Cape Lookout in some winters (Wells 1961), which 

 conceivably could aid southward movement of 

 lobsters. The current contributes to what Watling 

 (1979) and others have considered as part of a 

 shallow nearshore and estuarine "transhatteran" 

 zone. While the lobster larval phase might be 

 dispersed southward from breeding populations 

 living in cooler water by this means, survivors of 

 such movement must be rare and would have to 

 exist for at least two seasons in warm temperate 

 Carolinian waters that are heavily trawled for 

 penaeid shrimps in order to attain the sizes 

 recorded in Table 1 (from growth rates calculated 

 by Hughes and Mathiessen 1962, and accelerated 

 growth rates indicated by Scott 1973). The dis- 

 persed phase of older lobsters (Uzmann et al. 

 1977), however, might utilize this nearshore 

 southerly drift, and migrate southward in one 

 season when they had reached essentially the size 

 at which they were caught. 



Crabs. — The northernmost occurrences of trop- 

 ical crabs such as C. bocourti, C. danae Smith, and 

 C. marginatus A. Milne Edwards in the western 

 Atlantic have been attributed to drift of larvae 

 entrained in currents associated with the Gulf 

 Stream, or to drift of postlarval crabs (juveniles or 

 subadults) with debris, or transport on boats 

 (Williams 1974). Zoeae spawned in southern Flor- 

 ida, or perhaps Cuban waters, conceivably could 

 be swept northward in favorable warm seasons to 

 be introduced to shores of the Carolinian Province 

 (Williams 1965). Later growth stages of crabs 

 might be transported with the aid of swimming 

 or in association with flotsam. Evidence of drift 

 from the tropics deposited along the Carolina 

 shores is provided by strandings of 22 species 

 of sea-beans (Mucuna spp.), red mangrove 

 (Rhizophora mangle Linnaeus) seedlings, and 

 mango fruits (Mangifera indica Linnaeus) (Gunn 

 and Dennis 1976), palm trunks and coconuts, 

 bamboo, Portuguese man-of-war (Physalia), gulf- 

 weed iSargassum), etc. observed along Bogue 

 Banks, Core Banks, and Cape Lookout, especially 

 following southerly storms. 



Perschbacher and Schwartz (1979) reported C. 

 danae, C. marginatus, and C. ornatus in the 

 Intracoastal Waterway south of Carolina Beach 

 Inlet, New Hanover County, in mid-September 



1977, and in the nearby Cape Fear River in mid- 

 October 1977; C ornatus was already known from 

 the Carolinas and C. marginatus recorded once 

 near Beaufort (Williams 1974). Milstein et al. 

 (1977) reported another tropical species, Cronius 

 ruber Lamarck, collected off Little Egg Inlet, N.J., 

 on 27 September 1974 (size unrecorded), from an 

 engine block. 



Callinectes specimens of the sizes reported here 

 and by Perschbacher and Schwartz (1979) are 

 mature (Williams 1974). The growth rates of C. 

 bocourti, C. marginatus , C. danae, and C. ornatus 

 are unknown, but if they are similar to that of C. 

 sapidus these crabs were at the end of their second 

 summer of life when caught. Their presence in the 

 Carolinas at this size in late summer-early fall 

 would have to result from: 1) transport of zoeae or 

 megalopae into Carolinian waters during the 

 previous summer or fall, and overwintering as 

 juveniles to mature during the second summer of 

 residence; 2) transport to Carolinian waters as 

 juveniles in spring to mature during their second 

 summer; or 3) transport to the Carolinas as 

 subadults or adults sometime during the summer 

 preceding capture. Presence of four tropical spe- 

 cies together, two in considerable numbers, far 

 beyond their normal range (Perschbacher and 

 Schwartz 1979), suggests something other than 

 casual transport, perhaps an unusually mild win- 

 ter preceding the season of capture, a major 

 eddy(ies) in the Gulf Stream, or major southern 

 storm(s). 



Callinectes sapidus requires temperatures 

 >20° C for hatching, development, and survival 

 of larvae (Costlow and Bookhout 1959; Costlow 

 1965, 1967). During larval development, the zoeal 

 stages of C. sapidus are found at sea seasonally 

 (see Williams 1974 for review), but megalopae 

 return to estuaries for development into adults. 

 Estuarine water temperatures in the Beaufort 

 area commonly fall below 10° C in v/inter 

 (Williams et al. 1967); in South Carolina such 

 temperatures are normally higher, 9.4° C and 

 above in 1973-74 (Mathews and Shealy 1978), for 

 example. The winter of 1976-77 was abnormally 

 cold in the eastern United States, the subnormal 

 trend continuing into summer at sea (Ingham 

 1979). January water temperatures as low as 

 2° C were recorded in the bight of Cape Lookout 

 (R. S. FoxM. 



'R. S. Fox, Department of Biology, Lander College, Green- 

 wood, SC 29646, pars, commun. May 1979. 



194 



