Tanaids in numbers...

The scientific part of our expedition has officially come to an end. In just a few days, we’ll be stepping off the ship – some of us heading deeper into New Zealand, others (like me) beginning the journey home. But just because we’re finishing the cruise doesn’t mean the work is over! Right now, we’re busy sorting, counting, and analyzing all the creatures we collected over the past few weeks. That means I finally get to share a little peek into the world of Tanaids!

During the NBP25-01 cruise, we collected an impressive 746 tanaidaceans! All of them belong to the suborder Tanaidomorpha. Most were caught using an EBS – 671 individuals, to be exact – while the rest came from a dredge (48) and a Smith-McIntyre Grab (27). 

I’ve sorted them into 12 families and 16 morphospecies, but those numbers might change once we’re back on land with proper lab conditions. These crustaceans are so tiny that identifying them correctly requires a high-quality microscope and a stable surface – which is pretty hard to find when the ship is constantly moving!

What’s especially interesting is that most of the tanaidaceans we found were juveniles. We only came across two individuals in the manca-I stage (Neotanais sp.), a few Nototanais males, some ovigerous females, and one swimming male from the family Pseudotanaidae.

I’m hoping these specimens will be the foundation for some exciting future analyses – including my PhD research, which I’ll be diving straight back into as soon as I return to Poland!

Kamila Głuchowska
University of Lodz