37 



THE NATURAL HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY 

 OF THE ANTARCTIC KRILL 

 (EUPHAUSIA SUPERB A DANA) 



By James Marr 



(Plate III and Text-figs. 1-157) 



We always can tell a likely spot to look for whales by the colour of the water. Whales feeds upon 

 insects which swarm in good whale water in myriads, making the water look quite thick and dark 

 brown. When we see the water have this appearance we keep a good lookout for fish. If there is no 

 food in the water you may be sure you won't see no fish, unless they happen to be passing on their 

 way up or down the country, or are on the search for good feeding ground. 



It's my opinion a whale can go a long time zvithout meat, but when they do feed they swallow 

 a tremendous quantity. We often take bucketsful of whales' food out of their throats and mouths 

 when cutting out the whalebone. 



Whales' food consists of small red insects or animalcules, or whatever you may choose to call 

 them, of a regular, uniform reddish colour, and spindle-shaped, tapering away to the tail. They 

 are found principally in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas, where they exist in enormous numbers. 

 They don't exceed an inch in length, yet they are the principal food of these great fish. 



From the remarks of John Gravill, captain of the Arctic whaleship 'Diana' of Hull in 1866-7, quoted in the diary of Charles 

 Edward Smith (1922), M.R.C.S., surgeon of the 'Diana' and one of the survivors of this tragic voyage. 



INTRODUCTION 



DURING the long course of the investigations conducted by the former Discovery Committee, and 

 continued latterly by the National Institute of Oceanography, special attention was given to the 

 study of the biology and distribution of the Antarctic whale food, or the krill as it is commonly 

 known, a name derived from the Norwegian 'kril', meaning fry or very young fish. Over the years, 

 from an immense area girdling the polar continent, material accumulated, covering in the end the 

 many diverse phases of the life of this swarming pelagic prawn from the egg to the adult state. The 

 results of its analysis, representing, in field and laboratory, the labour of some twenty years, are now 

 presented in the following survey of the biology and zoogeography of a species, economically and 

 ecologically the most important of Antarctic macroplankton animals, and in sheer mass of living matter, 

 it has been said, perhaps amounting to all the rest of the Antarctic macroplankton combined (though 

 see p. 135). In the title I have preferred the wider Geography to the more fashionable Zoogeography, 

 my chief concern in this treatise having been to obtain all along a broad understanding of the principles 

 underlying the distribution and movements of these southern shrimps over their whole world range. 

 I make no excuse for Natural History. It covers a wide field, expressing euphoniously and in plain 

 English what we understand of the life and environment of animals. Although for long ousted by the 

 classical Ecology, today, as Walford (1955) has said, it is 'now at last again coming into its own, though 

 perhaps under a diflFerent label '. Many in fact (Hedgpeth, 1957) still regard ecology as an unnecessary 

 synonym for natural history. A knowledge of the distribution and movements of the whale food, and 

 above all what is controlling them, is an essential step towards a fuller understanding of the distri- 



