Thoracic Cirripedia From Guyots Of The Mid Pacific Mountains

Knowledge of the fauna of oceanic seamounts is meager.To determine whether seamounts serve as stepping stones for the distribution and dispersal of sedentary faunas across oceanic barriers, and their role in the biogeography and speciation of deep-sea faunas, an expedition went to the Mid-Pacific Mountains in the summer of 1968.This paper reports on Thoracic Cirripedia from six guyots located there.Nine species were identified, of which four are new.Three of the new species are allied to forms from the Indo-Pacific; the fourth is closely related to a Hawaiian species.Of the five previously known species, two are widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific, two are cosmopohtan and one is endemic to Hawaii.Thus, the affinities of the cirripeds are predominantly Indo-Pacific.