Benthic deep-sea fauna in south of the Kii Strait and the Sea of Kumano, Japan. Second report

Preliminary results of the deep-sea faunal survey conducted from the TR/V Seisui-maru of Mie University in April 2019 are presented. A total of 20 taxonomists and ecologists working on a wide variety of animal taxa participated in this survey. Surveyed areas included the Kumano Sea（off Mie Prefecture）and south of the Kii Strait（off Tanabe Bay, Wakayama Prefecture）， at depths of 112－775 m. Sampling gears employed were beam trawl and biological dredge. The collection is represented by macrobenthos and meiobenthos from nine animal phyla, including echinoderms, arthropods, molluscans and annelids. The number of phyla occurring in each station varied from seven to eight. The station with most diverse fauna at the phylum level was St. 3B（south of the Kii Strait, 775－661 m depth, mud bottom）．Meiofauna includes priapulids, nematodes and small arthropods such as copepods, tanaidaceans, amphipods, isopods and cumaceans. In addition to freeliving species, cnidarians symbiotic on a gastropod and an antipatharian, and crustaceans parasitic on a fi sh and sea urchins were also collected. Preliminary identifi cations are given for Asteroidea, Ophiuroidea, Holothuroidea, Crinoidea, Cyclopoida, Siphonostomatoida, Tanaidacea, Isopoda, Decapoda, Mollusca, polychaetes, Bryozoa, Cnidaria and Nemertea.