8-13 



water temperature - i.e., winter and more notably mid-siommer. Seasonal 

 abundance patterns as judged from sampling may also have reflected local 

 inshore-offshore movements or changing degrees of activity. In the 

 section to follow ("Selected Species"), detailed consideration is given 

 to six commonly encountered epibenthic species, with consideration of 

 their seasonal and annual abundance patterns, and distribution. 



Other epibenthic species inhabit New Haven Harbor waters but 

 are collected in abundances too low to accurately characterize their 

 individual distribution or abundance patterns. Included in this cate- 

 gory are: Busycon canaliculatum, the channeled whelk; Nassarius tri- 

 vittatus , a mud snail common intertidally on mud flats; the oyster- 

 drill, Urosalpinx cinerea; the commercially important blue crab, Callin- 

 ectes sapidus; the green crab, Carcinus maenas ; the mud crabs, Neopanope 

 sayi and Panopeus herbstii; Limulus polyphemus , the horseshoe crab; and 

 the moon-snai]s Lanatia heros and Polinices duplicata, both predacious 

 carnivores that feed on other molluscs. Many of these species were not 

 quantitatively collected by otter trawls either because of their size or 

 because their preferred habitat is not conducive to bottom trawling. 



Selected Species 



Cvangon septemspinosa 



The numerically dominant epibenthic invertebrate in New Haven 

 Harbor was the caridean shrimp, Crangon septemspinosa. The sand shrimp, 

 Crangon, consistently ranked first in abundance, comprising from 56 to 

 90 percent of the total annual catch (Table 8-4) . Crangon forms an 

 integral part of the food web in New Haven Harbor; considered a scaven- 

 ger and secondary consumer, it feeds on organic detritus, small poly- 

 chaetes, and benthic and planktonic crustaceans (Price, 1962; Regnault, 

 1976) . In turn, Crangon forms an important food source for many finfish 

 species such as flounder, weakfish, bluefish, skates and rays (Bigelow 

 and Schroeder, 1953, and Price, 1962). In the western North Atlantic, 

 Crangon ranges from Baffin Bay to east Florida (Williams, 1965). 



