THE ZOOPLANKTON OF THE GULF OF MEXICO 



By Hilary B. Moore, Marine Laboratory, University of Miami ' 



No major expeditions have collected zooplank- 

 ton from the Gulf area. Most of the collections 

 which have been made were from coastal waters, 

 and none of these have been completelj' described. 

 Some of the collections are still being worked on, 

 while others could no doubt be available for study 

 if required. No complete reference collection of 

 the various species appears to exist. 



Those published accounts of the zooplankton 

 which have been traced are listed below. In view 

 of their scattered nature and the fact that brief 

 reference to material from the area may occur in 

 papers on other areas, the list is almost certainly 

 incomplete. A list of known collections and what 

 could be ascertained on their present status is also 

 included. 



Burkenroad (1932) reports on nine species of 

 euthecosomatous and one of gymnosomatous 

 pteropods from Louisiana. Davis (1948) lists 

 three species, one of them new, of copepods from 

 a brackish habitat and mentions unidentified 

 ctenophores. In another paper (1950) he gives a 

 full account of 35 open water and 10 inshore hauls 

 from the area. None of the hauls were from deep 

 water. This paper also contains a survey of his 

 own data and references to related work. 



King (1950) describes the samples taken over a 

 10-month period in the St. Marks-Fort Myers 

 region. Except for some copepods, few specific 

 identifications are given. ^ 



Osorio Tafall (1942) reviews previous work on 

 Mexican rotifers and gives a detailed study of 

 certain genera including fresh water, brackish, and 

 marine species. 



Riley's (1937) work is mainly concerned with 

 phytoplankton-nutrient salt relations but is im- 

 portant in indicating an area of high standing 

 crop ofT the mouth of the Mississippi. The pro- 

 ductivity of the waters emerging from the Gulf 

 of Mexico into the Florida current is discussed in 



' Contribution No. 102 from the Marine Laboratory, University of Miami. 

 ' See article on Copepoda by W. L. Schmitt, pp. 439-442. 



his paper on the plankton of the Tortugas region 



(Riley 1938). 



An ecological survey of the waters adjacent to 



Miami (Smith et al., 1950), although not within 



the area, deals with the water of primarily Gulf 



origin and is therefore relevant for Gulf of Mexico 



studies. 



MATERIAL 



Various plankton collections made in the Gulf 

 of Mexico are now located in the following 

 institutions: 



Scripps Institution of Oceanography. — F. B. 

 Phi eger is working on Foraminifera from 27 series of 

 tow-nettings taken from the surface to 2,000 meters. 

 He states that the remainder of the material has 

 been passed on to Yale University. 



Texas Christian University. — W. G. Hewatt has 

 a considerable amount of material which is still 

 being worked on. In 1944-46 frequent samples 

 were taken from Barataria Bay, Louisiana; in 

 1947 samples were taken from an extended area 

 of Louisiana embayments; in 1948 samples were 

 taken from the east side of the Mississippi Delta, 

 Mobile Bay, and Pensacola Bay. 



Texas Game and Fish Commission. — J. L. 

 Baughman has a collection of samples from the 

 Rockport neighborhood. 



Fish and Wildlife Service, United States Depart- 

 ment of the Interior. — P. A. Butler has a series of 

 weekly samples for a period of about 18 months 

 taken in Santa Rosa Sound. These are partially 

 worked up. 



United States National Museum. — Has a partly 

 identified collection of medusae from the Gulf 

 made by M. D. Burkenroad. 



Institute of Marine Science. — Has a collection 

 of Gulf copepods which are being worked on. To 

 date, 11 species have been identified. 



Zoological Museum of Copenhagen. — P. Heegard 

 of the Zoological Museum of Copenhagen made 

 collections of larval penaeid shrimp from the Gulf. 



171 



