Vol. 53 - Alaska Resources Library and Information Services

catchability in survey gear used.
Whatever the causes, too little
available data on benthic distribution make spatial correlations
between larval and adults tenuous.
In this section, larval density and
distribution will be summarized and related to benthic stocks if possible.
The natural history of each species will be presented in taxonomic order.
The results and discussion of the larvae of each taxon from our study will
be presented with the most commercially important species (Erimacrus
isenbeckii), first, followed, in descending order, by those taxa with
the highest frequency of occurrence in samples.
5.1.1. Atelecylidae
Erimacrus isenbeckii (Korean horse hair crab), a recent target of
an American fishery, occurs from depths of 10-360 m from the Bering Sea
to the Japan Sea (Table 5.1).
Males reach lengths of at least 128 mm,
and the largest recorded by NMFS in the southeastern Bering Sea weighed
1.95 kg (Otto et al. 1980). In 1981, 2.4 million pounds of Erimacrus
were taken in the fishery (Otto et al. 1982).
In 1982, however, less
than a half a million pounds were caught, primarily due to lower market
demands for the product (Otto et al. 1982).
The fishery is centered
around the Pribilof Islands where the majority of the 1980 estimate of
12.9 million sexually mature males with carapace length greater than 80
mm occurred.
In years prior to 1980, fairly high concentrations were
frequently reported just north of the Alaska Peninsula (Otto et al.
1980). Females, which are rarely larger than 80 mm in carapace length,
(Sakurai et al. 1972, cited in Otto et al. 1980) are not part of the
fishery, and accurate estimates of abundance and patterns of distribu-
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