THE CASE FOR A WARM-TEMPERATE MARINE FAUNA 

 ON THE WEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA 



By 



John S. Garth 

 Allan Hancock Foundation 



The Pacific Coast of the Americas, from Bering Strait to the Strait 

 of Magellan, is the longest stretch of uninterrupted coastline in the world. 

 Extending in a northwesterly to southeasterly direction from Latitude 

 66° N to Latitude 54° S, it has but two significant indentations, the 

 Gulf of California and the Bay of Panama. It should be expected that 

 along such a continuous coastline the major faunal regions would be 

 represented in regular succession, as are their terrestrial counterparts, 

 the biotic provinces. It is therefore something of a paradox to read in 

 Ekman, "Zoogeography of the Sea" (1953, p. 144), that one of the 

 more important regions, the warm-temperate, is wanting. To quote 

 directly: ". . . the whole of the North American [Pacific] coast from 

 and including the northern part of Lower Cahfornia and northwards 

 corresponds ... to the boreal region [on the Atlantic side] , the southern 

 boundary of which [corresponds with] the south-western entrance to the 

 English Channel ... as regards surface temperatures. . . . Thus there 

 is practically no room for a warm-temperate fauna on the Pacific Coast 

 of North America, ... if 'warm temperate' is taken to mean the same 

 as far as America is concerned as it does in Europe." 



With all due respect to Professor Ekman, for whose scholarship 

 and erudition I have profound admiration, this is simply not the case. 

 Not only is there room for a warm-temperate fauna on the Pacific 

 Coast of North America, but such a fauna does in fact exist. That the 



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