Notes on the fishes collected during the 1980-1981 exploratory bottom trawl fishing off the South Shetland Islands

Species composition of the bottom trawl collection from the adjacent waters of the South Shetland Islands was represented by the number of species and specimens. Descriptions of the embryos and the egg-capsules of the rajid fishes and of Trematomus hansoni with abnormally developed lower lateral line were given. Two species discovered for the first time from West Antarctica were also described. A total of 3576 specimens examined were referred to 9 families and 36 species. Notothenia gibberifrons was by far the commonest (50.2% of fishes examined) and was the dominant species at most of stations. Gymnoscopelus nicholsi and Chionodraco rastrospinosus were the second in abundance. In comparison with the channichthyid fishes collected from the Ross Sea in 1979,it seemed that the genus Chionodraco was the dominant genus among the family Channichthyidae in both areas. Pogonophryne scotti and Chionodraco myersi, which had been recorded only from East Antarctica, were collected for the first time. The circumpolar distribution of P. scotti and C. myersi was inferred from the present records of these species from West Antarctica