

OBSERVATIONS ON THE BRACHIOPOD 

 COMMUNITIES NEAR SANTA CATALINA ISLAND 



By 



N. T. Mattox 



Allan Hancock Foundation 

 Department of Biolog>', University of Southern California 



During the course of biological studies in the Channel Island area 

 conducted from the research ship Velero IV, attention was drawn to 

 those collections which contained living brachiopods. Approximately 

 thirty collections made near the shores of Santa Catalina Island con- 

 tained these interesting animals. As was pointed out by Cooper (1948), 

 very little has been presented on the ecology of living brachiopods ; our 

 knowledge of how they live, their relationship to each other, or their liv- 

 ing animal associates is very meager. Some reports on modern brachiopods 

 have given distributional and bathymetric data, but little other ecological 

 information. Davidson (1886-1888) and Dall (1920) gave some data 

 on range, depth, and bottom conditions. The most recent and complete 

 compilation on eastern Pacific brachiopods, by Hertlein and Grant 

 (1944), summarized the geological history, taxonomic, bibliographic, 

 distributional, and bathymetric information on all of the known Cenozoic 

 species of this area. 



The observations here presented may be considered as additions to 

 our knowledge of the ecology of living brachiopods. These results and 

 findings are not to be taken as complete and final. Such a report is not 

 yet possible because of the generally inaccessible location of the area and 

 the incomplete nature of the collections and their analyses. 



