Prawns (Chorismus antarcticus) caught by mesh traps at the Vestfold Hills

The site in Ellis Fjord was chosen on the basis of published information regarding bathymetry and the range of depths inhabited by prawn species. We waited until December to sample in Ellis Fjord so that the fishing hole did not refreeze. Prawns were caught only in Ellis Fjord and only when the traps were deployed open i.e. with zips on the doors to get the catch out left undone.

Approximately 50 prawns of various sizes were caught over three days at the same location, 200 m east of the crossing at Ellis Narrows. The catch has been stored whole in the Australian Antarctic Division freezer in Hobart. Bycatch included amphipods and Notothenid fish at Magnetic Island, and echinoderms, holothurians and Notothenid fish in Ellis Fjord.

Some of the bycatch were retained and are stored frozen with the prawns. The linked dataset contains the measurements of length, mass, carapace length and sex (juvenile, male, female) of the prawn catch. All of the prawns were Chorismus antarcticus.

The adult females were brooding eggs. The best fit linear regressions were y = 0.3529x - 2.4824, (R2 = 0.9504) for carapace length to predict body mass, and y = 3.5267x + 4.5846 (R2 = 0.9544) for carapace length to body length. The associated URLs contain all of the data, including spreadsheet of data, a scatterplot of the length mass relationship, and a mass frequency histogram of the catch.

The fields in this dataset are: Chorismus ID carapace length (mm) body length (mm) mass (g) sex