Gnathophausia — Pequegnat 
411 
the Atlantic Ocean and in the area of Indonesia 
in the South Pacific. Fage ( 1941 ) has contrasted 
its wide distribution in the Atlantic with its 
localization in the tropical zone in the Pacific. 
Fage also points out that this species is less 
strictly bound to the great depths, occurring in 
a wide range of depths (from 200 m to 3000 m 
in the captures of the Dana Expedition ) . The 2 
specimens from the Scripps collections came 
from approximately 1000 m. 
HORIZONTAL DISTRIBUTION 
The Scripps 1950-33 collections studied here 
were obtained from the eastern Pacific Ocean 
within an area extending to 160°W and be- 
tween 60 °N and 10 °S. Figure 7 shows the 
locations of captures of the three species of 
Gnathophausia predominant in the collections. 
The more northerly species in the eastern 
Pacific is G. gigas, occurring mainly north of 
30 °N. South of 40 °N G. in gens takes over, 
ranging south to approximately 20 °N. Below 
20 °N there is only one station (Station H52- 
309) where G. ingens was identified from the 
Scripps collections, with the exception of the 
"giant” specimen of G. ingens described by 
Clark (1961), which was captured in 1955 
between 7°50'N, 120°13'W and 8°12'N, 119° 
54'W. 
G. gracilis overlaps the distribution of G. in- 
gens between 20°-40°N and is the predomi- 
nantly tropical form occurring in equatorial 
samples where neither of the other two species 
was found. 
Gnathophausia ingens 
The worldwide occurrence of G. ingens falls 
generally between 40 °N and 40 °S. Within 
these limits we find some interesting variations 
in distribution in different portions of the 
world’s oceans. 
Figure 8 shows that G. in gens, although 
scarce in equatorial waters of the eastern Pa- 
cific Ocean, is abundant in equatorial waters 
in other oceans. Fage (1941) comments on the 
rarity of this species east of the Samoan Islands 
in the eastern Pacific Ocean, as indicated by 
the captures of the Dana and previous expedi- 
tions. He speculates on the low oxygen tension 
in this area in the deep-water habitat of the 
species as being responsible for this lack of 
specimens. On the contrary, I have found that, 
off the coasts of California and Baja California, 
between 20°-40°N, G. ingens is the most 
abundant species of Gnathophausia in the 
Scripps collections taken from this portion of 
the eastern Pacific. It is more than twice as 
abundant in our captures from this region as is 
G. gracilis, and 18 times as numerous as G. 
gigas. G. ingens is, however, notably absent 
from our stations occupied in the equatorial 
zone where G. gracilis is the dominant species 
(Fig. 7). Whether G. ingens again becomes 
more abundant between 15° and 40 °S in the 
eastern Pacific is only speculation until sam- 
ples can be studied from collections made in 
these areas. The samples studied here did not 
extend beyond 8°S (Station H52-363). 
Possibly temperature is a factor in this dis- 
TABLE 4 
Gnathophausia gracilis 
Size and Location of Largest Specimens Captured 
SIZE (mm) 
SEX 
STATION* 
DEPTH OF 
HAUL 
( meters ) 
APPROXIMATE 
LOCATION* 
Without 
Rostrum 
Rostrum 
Included 
115 
136 
F 
H51-84 
914 
off Baja California, Mex. 
113 
138 
F 
H51-77 
1810 
off Baja California, Mex. 
113 
134 
M 
H51-90 
2213 
off Baja California, Mex. 
106 
120 
F 
H51-77 
1810 
off Baja California, Mex. 
105 
p 
F 
H51-91 
2012 
off Baja California, Mex. 
103 
122 
F 
H51-90 
2213 
off Baja California, Mex. 
See Table 1 for exact locations. 
