IX.—Stalk-eyed Crustacea Malacostraca of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition

• Published in: Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
• Main Author: Stebbing, Thomas R. R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1915
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; General Environmental Science; Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s008045680003595x; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S008045680003595X

As the Scotia was engaged in marine research throughout the whole of its long voyage out and home, it was only to be expected that Antarctic specimens would form but a small fraction of the result. In like manner, as several of the halting-places, such as the Cape of Good Hope and the Falkland Islands, had been visited by many keen naturalists on earlier occasions, it was quite likely that species of the group with which this report is concerned would have been in numerous instances already observed. Accordingly, out of some fifty species here discriminated, only six claim to be new, and not more than ten can be regarded as Antarctic or sub-Antarctic in their place of capture. In the vast extension, however, which marine zoology has for some time past been receiving, some retardation in the stream of discovery may not be unwelcome to the systematist. Familiar forms which would otherwise amply repay a thorough reinvestigation are apt to be thrust on one side, when striking novelties are for ever appealing to be introduced. This expedition, like others before it, affords fair evidence that the Macrura are both abundant and varied in great depths of the ocean. But only too often the frailty of their fabric leaves them in a tantalisingly mutilated condition when they reach the surface.