Notocrangon antarcticus

Notocrangon antarcticus (Pfeffer, 1887)

Widely recorded circum-Antarctic benthic shelf species, in depths of 15–1320 m (Zarenkov 1968; Ledoyer 1989; Komai et al. 1996), reaching northwards to South Georgia (Pfeffer 1887; Balss 1930). Has also been recorded/mapped from Cape Horn (Kirkwood 1984) and the Strait of Magellan (Boschi et al. 1992), but without details. Komai et al. (1996) strongly question the identity of the specimen of Boschi et al. (1992), which they suspect to be a Metacrangon species. Dambach et al. (2012) also claims that Zarenkov (1968) recorded the species north of the Antarctic Polar Front, but such a record does not feature in Zarenkov (1968). However, the official English translation of that work (Zarenkov 1970) clearly shows on the relevant map a dot near Cape Horn, absent in the Russian original. This is herein assumed to be a printing error, and is likely the source of the same record in Kirkwood (1984). We herein thus consider the species to be restricted to areas south of the Antarctic Polar Front, where it is very common on muddy bottoms. Makarov (1973) observed that populations from South Georgia have smaller eggs and smaller larvae than those from the South Orkney Islands. Synonym: Crangon (Notocrangon) antarcticus var. gracilis Calman, 1907.