Notes
521 records
This species was originally described from off Naples in the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the more abundant species in tropical and subtropical waters, living at shallow mesopelagic to depths by day and migrating up into the epipelagic at night. Males often swarm in great abundance in the neuston at night (Moguilevsky and Angel, 1975). Its taxonomy and systematics is very confused. Müller (1906) tentatively included it in his ‘magna group’ although it has several characters that are inconsistent with this classification. At the same time he synonymized C. porrecta with it, but as Angel (1969) showed they are separate species. Poulsen (1973) placed this species in a new genus Spinoecia, without designating a type species. Martens (1979) decided to divide Poulsen’s new genus, abandoning the name and proposing two new genera, Obtusoecia and Porroecia. Curiously Martens designated Porroecia porrecta adriatica (Gooday and Angel, 1977) as the type species as the type species for the genus Porroecia. A number of subspecies have been described particularly from the Mediterranean, and Poulsen described a new closely related species vibekensis from the Indonesian Seas. Thus it is not always certain as to which species or subspecies previous reports have referred to. This is unfortunate as it is often numerically dominant in halocyprid populations. For example in set of samples collected to describe vertical profiles off Bermuda (Discovery station 8281) this species was by far the most abundant and contributed 25% of all the specimens collected. It was similarly dominant at 30°N 23°W (Discovery Station 7856) (Angel, 1979). Lochhead (1968) and Angel (1970) described its swimming, feeding and behaviour.
The living animals are translucent and only lightly pigmented with yellow and orange, particularly around the bases of the limbs and the carapace glands.
| Equator
|
n
|
Mean mm
|
s.d.
|
Range mm
|
|---|
| Female
|
676
|
1.19
|
0.037
|
1.08-1.30
|
|---|
| Male
|
236
|
1.05
|
0.045
|
0.98-1.18
|
|---|
| A-1
|
285
|
0.85
|
0.026
|
0.78-0.92
|
|---|
| A-2
|
188
|
0.62
|
0.017
|
0.58-0.66
|
|---|
| A-3
|
|
|
|
|
|---|
| Bermuda
|
n
|
Mean mm
|
s.d.
|
Range mm
|
|---|
| Female
|
262
|
1.14
|
0.107
|
1.02-1.24
|
|---|
| Male
|
169
|
1.01
|
0.114
|
0.94-1.08
|
|---|
| A-1
|
419
|
0.81
|
0.103
|
0.74-0.92
|
|---|
| A-2
|
166
|
0.60
|
0.019
|
0.56-0.64
|
|---|
| Azores Front
|
n
|
Mean mm
|
s.d.
|
Range mm
|
|---|
| Female
|
169
|
1.09
|
0.041
|
1.04-1.20
|
|---|
| Male
|
79
|
0.98
|
0.034
|
0.94-1.06
|
|---|
| A-1
|
165
|
0.78
|
0.028
|
0.72-0.84
|
|---|
| Adriatic
|
n
|
Mean mm
|
s.d.
|
Range mm
|
|---|
| Female
|
21
|
1.15
|
0.039
|
1.06-1.22
|
|---|
| Male
|
12
|
1.06
|
0.035
|
1.02-1.12
|
|---|
| A-1
|
24
|
0.85
|
0.029
|
0.80-0.90
|
|---|
| A-2
|
12
|
0.62
|
0.016
|
0.60-0.64
|
|---|
| A-3
|
52
|
0.41
|
0.011
|
0.38-0.44
|
|---|
| A-4
|
3
|
0.26
|
|
0.26
|
|---|
