Actinosporeans are well known as parasites of freshwater invertebrates. There are, however, only three records of actinosporeans from marine oligochaetes. These are Sphaeractinomyxon stolci Caullery and Mesnil, 1904 inhabiting the body cavity of Clitellio arenarius and Hemitubifex benedeni (= Tubificoides benedii) from the northern coast of France (Caullery and Mesnil 1904; Marques 1984) and Sphaeractinomyxon sp.

from the coelom of limnodriloidine tubificid oligochaetes from Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia (Hallett et al. 1995).

Freshwater actinosporeans have been implicated in the life cycles of at least 14 species of Myxosporea (Kent et al. 1994). Myxosporeans are common parasites of freshwater fish and...

Thirty species of nemerteans have so far been recorded from the Hong Kong region (Stimpson 1855, 1857; Humes 1942; Gibson 1990a; Gibson and Sundberg 1992), although six of these, established entirely on the basis of their external features, are either invalidated or identified as nomina dubia by Gibson (1995). Humes (1942) record of the brachyuran egg predator Carcinonemertes mitsukurii Takakura, 1910, is of uncertain validity. The nemertean fauna of Hong Kong is both rich and diverse (Gibson 1990a), Gibson and Sundberg (1992: 97) noting that ‘we have at least 100 species in our collections yet to be described.’ The present...

The Cape d’ Aguilar Marine Reserve on the southeastern tip of Hong Kong Island consists of a shallow protected bay, open coastline and the exposed eastern shores of Cape d’ Aguilar, with the two interconnected offshore islands known as Kau Pei Chau. The geology and general biology of the reserve have recently been described by Morton and Harper (1995).

The reserve is biologically rich, with a wide range of habitats reflected in a high biodiversity. Of the 33 nemertean species known from the Hong Kong region (Gibson 1997), no less than 11, i.e., 33%, have been recorded from within the...

The marine oligochaetes of Hong Kong have been treated in a series of taxonomic papers (Erséus 1984, 1990a, 1992a). Fifty-two species of Tubificidae, three Naididae, nine Enchytraeidae and one Megascolecidae have been recorded from the Hong Kong area to date.

The present contribution provides supplementary records and taxonomic descriptions of six species of Tubificidae, on the basis of material collected during April 1995. One new taxon, Gianius eximius sp.nov., is described. A checklist of all marine and brackishwater Oligochaeta known from Hong Kong is provided as an appendix to the paper.

For a complete account of all oligochaetes collected in...

The first detailed study of the polychaete fauna of Hong Kong was made by Shin (1982). He reported three species of the genus Prionospio Malmgren, 1867; Prionospio cirrifera Wirén, 1883, Prionospio malmgreni Claparède, 1870 and Prionospio ehlersi Fauvel, 1928. Mackie and Hartley (1990) redescribed P. ehlersi and concluded that the Hong Kong specimens belonged to another species, Prionospio saccifera Mackie and Hartley, 1990. Prionospio malmgreni is indeterminable (Maciolek 1985; Sigvaldadóttir and Mackie 1993), and the record of P. cirrifera is doubtful since this species is described from the Kara Sea and such a wide distribution is considered unlikely.

Recent papers...

The cosmopolitan genus Copidognathus comprises almost 300 species and, in littoral warm water areas, generally holds more than one-third of the halacarid species. A list of marine organisms recorded from southern China (Huang 1994) includes 31 halacarid species, 10 of them belonging to Copidognathus.

The halacarid mites here reported upon were collected in April 1989 and April 1995. The mites were cleared in lactic acid and mounted in glycerine jelly. Drawings were prepared using a camera lucida. Holotypes are deposited in the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum, Hamburg (ZIMH), other material in the author’s halacarid collection.

Abbreviations used in the...

The present paper is the first in a series on the peracarid crustaceans recorded at Cape d’ Aguilar, Hong Kong, during April 1995. The peracarid fauna of Hong Kong is as yet poorly known, although Moore (1990) has reported on amphipods and Ma (1990) and Markham (1992) have described isopods of the Oniscidea and Bopyridae, respectively. This paper reports on the single mysid and opportunistically collected anthurid isopod species collected in 1995. Morton and Harper (1995) describe the general features of the Cape d’ Aguilar Marine Reserve, including its marine ecology, geology and topography. In addition, while examining material from...

Morton and Harper (1995) describe the general features of the Cape d’ Aguilar Marine Reserve, including its marine ecology, geology and topography. This paper reports on the apseudomorph tanaidacean material collected at Cape d’ Aguilar in April 1995.

Between 11 and 19 April 1995, a range of habitats was sampled from within the reserve. Bulk epifaunal, algal and sedimentary samples were rinsed with freshwater (to relax and partially anaesthetize the specimens) and sieved over a 0.5 mm mesh, before being examined under x16 magnification. Additional specimens were kindly supplied by colleagues sampling other taxa, giving a total of 21 sites...

Morton and Harper (1995) describe the general features of the Cape d’ Aguilar Marine Reserve, including its marine ecology, geology and topography. Bamber (1997) reported on the apseudomorph tanaidaceans collected at Cape d’ Aguilar between 11 and 19 April 1995, and described the sampling; this paper reports on the tanaidomorph tanaidacean material collected in 1995. Six species were represented, all of which are new to science and one represents a new genus.

Additional material from Hong Kong’s New Territories (principally the Tolo Channel region) collected by A.S.Y. Mackie and others in 1986 and 1989 (Mackie et al. 1993) and held...

Morton and Harper (1995) describe the general features of the Cape d’ Aguilar Marine Reserve, including its marine ecology, geology and topography. The present paper reports on the pycnogonid material collected at Cape d’ Aguilar during April 1995.

Previously only three pycnogonid species had been recorded from Hong Kong waters (Bamber 1992), Anoplodactylus glandulifer Stock, 1954, Tanystylum sinoabductus Bamber, 1992 and an unidentified juvenile Nymphon. Thirty-one species have been recorded from waters less than 70 m depth in the seas around Korea and the coast of China, although not including the two mentioned above (see Discussion).

Between 11 and 19...

Although numerous species of the nudibranch suborder Arminacea have been described, very little is known about their anatomy (Garcia and Garcia-Gomez 1990a,b). Most anatomical descriptions are more than 100 years old, e.g., Bergh (1866, 1874, 1880). Three species have been recorded from Hong Kong previously (Orr 1981; Lin 1990, 1992).

During April 1995 numerous representatives of the Arminidae were collected in trawl samples from Hong Kong waters. These animals are anatomically described in the present study and their systematic affiliations discussed.

Collection data are listed below for individual species. Collected specimens were relaxed in 8% MgCl₂ and fixed in 4%...

Hong Kong and the New Territories harbour a rich and abundant fauna of marine oligochaetes, mostly composed of microscopic, i.e. either meiofaunal or small macrofaunal, species (Erséus 1984, 1990a, 1992a, 1996a). To date, a total of 71 species have been recorded from the region. They represent a wide range of marine and brackishwater habitats, including sandy beaches, mangroves, and subtidal sandy and muddy bottoms. A particular study devoted to a limited area, Hoi Ha Wan, a small, little exposed, bay of about 3 km² in the New Territories, yielded 42 species (59%) of this fauna (Erséus 1992b; Sundberg et al....

Phytal animals, including components of the macro-, meio- and microfauna, are important constituents of littoral and sublittoral food chains. Research on phytal meiofauna in seaweed communities has been carried out mainly in European and North and South American waters (Chilc). This has focused on taxonomy and faunal composition (Colman 1940; Dahl 1948; Wieser 1952, 1959; Ohm 1964; Hagerman 1966; Ott 1967; Hopper and Meyers 1967).

Since the 1970s, there has been increasing interest in the biological productivity of shallow water ecosystems and coastal environmental quality. Studies on seaweed and related faunal communities are geographically widespread, for example, New Zealand (Coull...

Ahermatypic corals include representatives of the Gorgonoidea and Alcyonoidea (Cnidaria: Octocorallia), Antipatharia and Dendrophyllia (Hexacorallia). Being ahermatypic and not, therefore, requiring light for zooxanthellae photosynthesis, they are not confined to shallow, tropical, reefs and are more widely distributed than their hermatypic counterparts (Veron 1993). Octocorals are common and conspicuous on almost all coral reefs (Lasker and Coffroth 1983) with representatives of the Gorgonoidea having a cosmopolitan distribution, from polar to tropical seas and throughout the range of depths studied (Zou and Scott 1980). A1cyonoideans are one of the major sessile invertebrates of Indo-Pacific reefs (Cary 1931; Crossland 1938; Dai 1991)....

Following the mass extinction which occurred at the close of the Permian (248 million years ago), brachiopods never again enjoyed the abundance and diversity that they had experienced during the Palaeozoic. Then, they were key members of shallow marine communities while today there are few living brachiopods belonging to a much smaller number of orders. Those which have been studied most intensively are from temperate and polar latitudes such as those off Scotland, New Zealand and Antarctica (James et al. 1992). As a consequence of their low diversity and relative scarcity in Recent faunas the study of the Brachiopoda has...

In comparison to the extensive literature on Hong Kong’s rocky shores, recently reviewed by Morton et al. (1995), there is a paucity of information on soft shores. Early work by Williams (1971, 1973) focussed on beach sand dynamics, much of which and other such work was reviewed by Morton and Ong Che (1992) who also described the structure and historical changes occurring in a highly dynamic sand beach at Hoi Ha Wan, a proposed marine park.

Morton and Morton (1983) divided Hong Kong’s soft shores into a number of categories based on substratum characteristics and resident species. Information is available...

Muricid gastropods are important predators in the shallow waters around Hong Kong and prey frequently upon other molluscan species (Taylor 1980). At Cape d’ Aguilar there is a diverse fauna of intertidal muricids, the predatory behaviour of which has been studied by a number of authors (Tong 1986; Cha 1994; Harper and Morton 1994). Most of these studies have dwelt upon predation of either elements of the Septifer virgatus community on the exposed shores of the peninsula or on the shallow burrowing bivalves in Lobster Bay, which are easily exhumed by wave action and thus subjected to muricid attack.

The...

No organism lives in isolation, but some form particularly close associations with others in which either one or both benefit. These associations are of three broad types: mutualistic, in which both organisms benefit, commensal, in which one benefits and the other is unaffected, and parasitic, in which one benefits at the expense of the other (Ahmadjian and Paracer 1986; Morton 1988).

The Ovulidae comprise several hundred species of marine gastropods all of which appear to be obligate associates of coelenterates (Hadfield 1976). Amongst those associated with gorgonians, there are two distinct modes of feeding: direct grazing on the flesh of...

Most gastropod molluscs use mucus as a coupler between foot and substratum during locomotion. Despite its obvious functional importance, mucus remains to be studied in most marine gastropods and all previous work has been restricted to prosobranchs. Mucus production by limpets has also been shown to be energetically important (Davies and Williams 1995), placing a significant drain on consumed energy, ranging from 23–32 % in temperate species (Davies et al. 1990). In this paper, we examine mucus production in species of Siphonaria from Cape d’ Aguilar, Hong Kong.

Three Siphonaria species, Siphonaria atra Quoy and Gaimard, Siphonaria sirius Pilsbry...

Nerita albicilla Linnaeus, 1758 is common on Hong Kong’s rocky shores (Hill 1980; Huang 1995) and is especially associated with intertidal rocks and boulders. Individuals of this species often occur in high densities, either grouped inside rock crevices or attached to the undersurfaces of boulders below mid-tide level. In Lobster Bay, Cape d’ Aguilar, Hong Kong Island, individuals of N. albicilla are distributed from extreme low-tide to the mid-tide zone.

In a previous gel electrophoretic investigation (Huang in press), twenty-three enzymes were scored for Hong Kong populations of Nerita albicilla. Of the eighteen gene loci resolved for this species, only...

Herbivorous fishes have great overall impacts on algal communities, their high mobility, powerful feeding apparatus and well developed visual capabilities means they can reduce within-and between-habitat algal diversity (Gaines and Lubchenco 1982; Horn 1989). In a series of experiments in Panamá, the experimental exclusion of herbivorous fish (and crabs) was shown to increase algal diversity and abundance in the low intertidal. After exclusion, the substratum was colonised by previously scarce algal turf genera such as Enteromorpha, Giffordia and Poiysiphonia (Lubchenco et al. 1984; Menge et al. 1985). Interest in the feeding biology of herbivorous fish has increased in recent years,...

Previously published studies of Hong Kong’s marine diatoms have mainly investigated the fertilizing effects of increased nutrient-loading on phytoplankton communities in Tolo Harbour (Hodgkiss and Chan 1983; Wear et al. 1984; Chan and Hodgkiss 1987; Hodgkiss and Chan 1987; Chan and Wong 1993) and Aberdeen Harbour (Thompson 1986). Studies on less severely impacted phytoplankton communities at Tai Tam Bay have also occurred (Chan et al. 1991; Chui 1994). Although no previous studies have investigated diatoms from Hong Kong’s recent surficial sediments, studies on the distribution of diatoms from surficial sediments of the Pearl River mouth (Yu 1986) and the South...

Between 2 and 20 April 1995, the opportunity was taken to continue the study of prosobranch egg capsules and reproduction in Hong Kong prosobranchs. Five species are described in this study. The egg capsules of one species, provisionally assigned to Crenavolva renovata (lredale, 1930), were described by Knudsen (1994).

The samples were fixed in 10% formalin before transfer to 80% ethanol which was changed after 1-2 days. The material is preserved in the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen.

Cate (1973) published a monograph of the family, based solely on shell characters. He established a number of new genera. Wilson (1993)...

Between 2 and 20 April 1995, the opportunity was taken to study the cap-shaped caenogastropod Calyptraea extinctorium Lamarck, 1822. The study was carried out at the Swire Institute of Marine Science, Cape d’ Aguilar, Hong Kong.

The genus Calyptraea contains less than 20 species worldwide. They are restricted to the tidal or subtidal zones of warm and warm temperate regions. The few species studied in detail (such as C. chinensis L. from the east Atlantic) are sedentary filter feeders. They are protandric hermaphrodites and brooding. Calyptraea extinctorium is widely distributed in the Indo-West Pacific, but there are few records of...

Imposex, the superimposition of male sexual characteristics on the female (Smith 1971), has been observed in around 80 species of neogastropods world-wide (Proud 1994). In many cases, strong evidence has been provided for the link between imposex and the presence in coastal waters of the biocide tributyltin (TBT) used in some antifouling paints, e.g., Ilyanassa obsoleta (Smith 1981), Nucella lapillus (Gibbs et al. 1988), Lepsiella scobina and L. albomarginata (Smith and McVeagh 1991). After exposure to TBT, female whelks develop male characteristics, usually expressed as the presence of a penis and vas deferens, in a dose dependent manner which is...

The Nassariidae is a large family of the Gastropoda with over three hundred species. Many of these occur in tropical and subtropical regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific (Cernohorsky 1984). In Hong Kong, seven species of Nassarius, three intertidal species and four subtidal species, have been reported (Britton and Morton 1992; Taylor 1992). Among them, Nassarius siquijorensis is the most abundant subtidal species and occurs mainly in eutrophic waters (Taylor 1992; Morton 1994). This may be attributed to the scavenging mode of feeding of this animal and its ability to tolerate hypoxia/anoxia (Morton 1994; Chan and Morton 1997), which is a characteristic...

The territorial waters of Hong Kong have an area of some 1,827 km², i.e., about one and a half times that of the land (1,150 km²). Since its founding in 1841, Hong Kong has grown to become one of the most important and densely populated cities on the southern coast of China. It has a population of 6.2 million and is the world’s eighth largest trading economy. Success is, now, based largely on its infrastructural and economic value to China so that its port is now, arguably, the busiest in the world. To keep ahead of the growing local and...

Hong Kong’s southeastern waters, as defined for this study, include the sea areas outside Victoria Harbour that is bounded between 22°09 N – 22°18 N and 114°07 E – 114°22 E. Large areas of these waters have been designated as sand borrow areas and systematically dredged since 1991 (Fig. 1). The dredged areas include: Tathong Channel, dredged between January 1991 and December 1994, East Tung Lung Chau, from September 1992 to July 1996, West Po Toi, from October 1992 to April 1996, and East Po Toi, from January 1993 to September 1996 (Fill Management Committee 1992, 1995). At the end of the...

A trawl programme was run in Tolo Harbour and adjacent waters in the spring (April) of 1977, 1978 and 1989 to study the epibenthic ichthyofauna (Thompson and Horikoshi 1982, Thompson et al. 1982, Leung 1992). On each occasion, the gear used was a beam trawl available commercially and used widely by local shrimp trawl fishermen. The first survey in 1977 was made by Thompson and Horikoshi (1982). Benthos from 26 stations in Tolo Harbour and Channel were identified, counted, but no biomass data were collected. In 1978, Thompson et al. (1982) re-surveyed the area, sampling at 23 stations using similar...

Between 1977 and 1986, surveys of Tolo Harbour, Tolo Channel and north-west Mirs Bay, Hong Kong, have documented changes in the species diversity, abundance and composition of the subtidal benthic fauna in response to increasing pollution (Horikoshi and Thompson 1980; Thompson et al. 1982; Wu 1982; Shin 1985; Taylor and Shin 1990). The composition of the gastropod community changed from dominance by specialist-feeding predators to generalist, scavenging, species with eventual dominance by representatives of the Buccinidae and Nassariidae, notably Nassarius siquijorensis (Taylor and Shin 1990; Morton 1995a). Land reclamation, new town development at Sha Tin and Tai Po on the...

This report is the third to deal exclusively with the systematics of cephalopods collected in Hong Kong waters, the first two being Voss and Williamson (1972) and Norman and Hochberg (1994). The book by Voss and Williamson includes keys to the Hong Kong species of Sepia, Loligo and Octopus. Norman and Hochberg reviewed works reporting on the fauna of adjacent Chinese waters and updated identifications for the octopods.

Although not documented directly, cephalopod specimens were first taken from Hong Kong for preservation as museum specimens in 1846, during the Danish Galathea Expedition (Bille 1849) and are the source of the...