The Chaetognatha of the Monsoon Expedition in the Indian Ocean

Abstract

This report deals with the chaetognaths collected by the "R/ V Argo" during the Monsoon Expedition in the Indian Ocean in 1960 and 1961. The Monsoon collections extended from about 8°S to 42°S (Fig. 1); that is, the region roughly limited by the Equatorial Countercurrent and the Subantarctic West Wind Drift ( the Indian Central waters extending to the Subtropical Convergence); and also the Indonesian seas and the South Australian waters. This report includes only data from the Indian Ocean. Data from collections made by the same Expedition in the Pacific have been added to the study of the chaetognaths of the Pacific. However, data derived from the Pacific are used here also in discussing the distribution of the species. The Monsoon Expedition covered in part the regions surveyed for chaetognaths by the Gazelle, Gauss, Sealark, Siboga, and Snellius expeditions, with the following exceptions: the Bay of Bengal, west coast of Ceylon, and waters of Somalia and eastern Africa.