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Goods news on the krill front. At about 10:30am yesterday, we passed over a swarm of krill and were finally able to scramble into action. The ship was swung around, the trawl net was deployed, and we successfully homed in on the swarm and managed to make our first substantial catch of krill for the voyage. This was followed up with another successful catch a few hours later. There was great interest in the catch with lots of people in the wet lab helping to transfer our new friends to the on-board aquarium.
This left us with the problem of identifying what we had caught. There are several types of krill that one might encounter and our target is Euphausia superba which is the largest of the krill species. But the creatures that we had caught were quite small and there was some immediate concern that we could have caught the smaller Crystal Krill (Euphausia crystallorophias). Worse still, we might have had Thysanoessa macrura on our hands which can easily result in a sprained tongue if you attempt to say it without proper training.
Nevertheless, after a bit of head scratching and microscope work, we are pretty confident that what we have is young Euphausia superba. There are a few adults amongst the many individuals that we have caught and their large size provides the confirmation. We would prefer to have caught lots of fully grown adult krill but these will do for now. The krill soundings are still quite sporadic and this morning we are 100 miles to the east of yesterday's hunting grounds, cruising along the edge of the pack ice, ready to jump on anything we might see.
Lloyd and Andrew
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.