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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. VII, October, 1953 
of Miers (1880), Brocks (1886), Bigelow 
(1894), and Kemp (1913). Of these works, 
the most useful for the identification of the 
Hawaiian species has been Kemp’s mono- 
graph on the Indo-Pacific species. 
Stomatopods are carnivorous and readily 
seize any flesh held in front of their burrows. 
This behavior has provided the most satis- 
factory means for capturing them, as they can 
be lured from their burrows by suspending 
fish flesh a short distance away and captured 
when they attack the flesh. Considerable dex- 
terity is necessary, however, as they withdraw 
rapidly into their burrows. It has been im- 
possible to keep more than one specimen at 
a time in small aquaria as they are highly 
cannibalistic. 
It is doubtful whether the adults often serve 
as food for other animals, although they may 
occasionally be found in the stomach con- 
tents of fish; but the planktonic larval stages 
which compose a substantial proportion of 
the neritic plankton form a considerable part 
of the diet of pelagic fishes. 
Instead of carrying their incubating eggs 
attached to the abdominal appendages, as do 
most Malacostraca, the stomatopods deposit 
them at the bottom of the burrows where they 
are aerated by currents of water produced by 
the abdominal appendages of the parent. 
These appendages are paddle shaped and con- 
form to the cylindrical shape of the hole. 
The eggs perish when they are deprived of this 
constant current of water, and, as the female 
will not remain with the eggs when placed 
in an aquarium, no larvae have been reared 
from the egg in captivity. 
The young do not hatch as nauplius larvae. 
All known forms hatch in an advanced stage 
which bears many adult characteristics, but 
it is difficult to assign the early larvae properly 
because the diagnostic characters do not ap- 
pear until later. 
The larvae are delicate, transparent organ- 
isms which lead a planktonic existence. The 
larval life is long, and they pass through many 
molts before reaching the adult stage. Not- 
withstanding their great abundance, only two 
or three early larval forms have been traced 
to their adult counterpart. Their long plank- 
tonic existence easily accounts for the world- 
wide distribution of the genera and the pres- 
ence of species such as Pseudosquilla ciliata 
in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, Red Sea, 
and Atlantic Ocean. At present there appear 
to be only two species which are endemic in 
Hawaii, namely, Coronida sinuosa and Squilla 
calumnia n. sp. 
Attempts were made to rear larval spec- 
imens, collected in plankton tows, in the lab- 
oratory, but this proved to be impossible as 
their period of survival in captivity was very 
short, and none of the larvae ever molted 
while in an aquarium. Because rearing of the 
larvae was unsuccessful, it was necessary to 
study specimens collected in plankton tows 
and at night light stations and material from 
the stomach contents of pelagic fishes. 
The earlier authors such as Miers (1880), 
in their work on larval stomatopods, were 
content with bestowing separate generic and 
trivial names upon the larvae. If the adult 
genus to which the larval specimens belonged 
was known, they added the suffix -erichthus 
to the first syllable of the adult genus plus 
a trivial designation (except in the case of 
alima of Squilla) . Thus Pseuderichthus communis 
Hansen, according to this system of classifi- 
cation, represented the larval form of a species 
of Pseudosquilla. Because no keys to these 
individual larval species were included, future 
authors found it difficult to identify specimens 
in their possession with those which had been 
previously described, and new larval species 
were erected to compensate for this. Claus 
(1872) and Brooks (1886) have done the most 
notable works on the larval forms. Giesbrecht 
(1910), Foxon (1932), and Gurney (1942) 
have reviewed the works of Claus and Brooks 
and expanded their results to include other 
unidentified larvae. However, I have found 
that the material has not been adequately 
simplified below the level of the genus, be- 
cause in many cases they have retained the 
