Euphausiacea.

The Euphausiacea are pelagic forms which are only occasionally washed up on New Zealand shores. Many are subtropical, but others attain their greatest development in size and in numbers in the colder waters of Antarctic and Subantarctic regions, where they frequently occur in enormous shoals and form an appreciable part of the food of whales, seals, seagulls, and other animals.

Before the publication of Dr. Tattersall's paper only eight species were known from New Zealand, chiefly as the result of the “Challenger” Expedition. The “Terra Nova” collections were made mostly to the north of New Zealand, almost on the fringe of the Tropical Zone. They comprise twelve species, of which only five had been previously recorded in this area; the remaining seven were all species known from tropical and subtropical seas, and may here reach, or approach, the southern limit of their range.

The list of the fifteen species now known from the New Zealand area is as follows:—

Occurrence: North of New Zealand. (Tattersall, 1924, p. 16.) A tropical and subtropical form of wide distribution.

Occurrence: North of New Zealand. (Tattersall, 1924, p. 16.) Frequently washed up on the beaches in the south of New Zealand; luminous. Confined to temperate seas of southern Australia and New Zealand.

Occurrence: North of New Zealand. (Tattersall, 1924, p. 17.) A southern subtropical and temperate species in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and widespread over the Pacific.