Zero of Animal Life probably about 300 fathoms

together with the teleost fishes Chalinura mediter-

ranea  and  Lepidion lepidion (Jones  in Priede and

Bagley, 2000). Our survey, transacted without

resorting to bait, documented the site-typical faunal

complement. There is no doubt that the abundance

of the Levantine deep water megafauna is remark-

ably low: in 80 hours of video documentation only

three fishes, B. mediterraneus, Cataetyx laticeps and

Chauliodes sloani, were recorded. Although our

methods were not sufficient for quantitative com-

parison with studies made in the western

Mediterranean, the small number of species and

specimens confirms the ichthyofaunal scarcity of

the Levantine Sea, not only compared with the adja-

cent Atlantic Ocean (Haedrich and Merrett, 1988),

but also with the western Mediterranean.

Decapod crustaceans

Twenty-one bathyal decapods were reported

from a faunistic survey of the Catalan sea conduct-

ed between 1983 and 1985 consisting of 39 trawl

samples taken between 1020 and 2011 m (Abelló

and Valladares, 1988), and 28 species were identi-

fied from 57 samples trawled between 862 and 2265

m in 1988 and 1989 (Cartes, 1993). In all, 29 benth-

ic, mesopelagic and bathypelagic decapod crus-

taceans have been identified from the Catalan deep

sea. Fifteen of the 20 decapod species collected dur-

ing the IOLR monitoring surveys are common to

both localities. Of the most common species at

1350-1549 m in the Catalan sea (Cartes, 1993)—

Aristeus antennatus,  Acanthephyra eximia,

Pontophilus norvegicus,  Polycheles sculptus and

Munida tenuimana—only the first two species occur

in our samples. The most common species in the

Levantine samples, Polycheles typhlops, was more

common on the middle slope than on the lower slope

in the Catalan sea. The cold stenothermal Sergestes

arcticus and  Pontophilus norvegicus are absent,

though the pelagic larvae of the former have been

found at a depth of 10 m, and the latter was record-

ed at 50 m (d’Udekem d’Acoz, 1999). Polycheles

sculptus, Munida tenuimana and Munidopsis serri-

cornis  [=  M. tridentata] are known only from the

western basin of the Mediterranean. Plesionika nar-

val, Munidopsis marionis and Bathynectes maravi-

gna were identified from the Levantine samples and

from the western Mediterranean, but not from the

surveys in the Catalan sea. In a survey of the deca-

pod fauna of the Eastern Ionian Sea at depths

between 1000 and 1500 m, A. antennatus was as

abundant as P. typhlops (Company  et al., 2004),

whereas in the Levantine Sea P. typhlops is more

than three times as abundant as A. antennatus.

Amphipod crustaceans

Fifty-two bathyal amphipod crustaceans were

reported from a survey of the Catalan Sea supraben-

tic bathyal communities (552 - 1808 m) conducted

in 1989 and consisting of 10 hauls (Cartes and

Sorbe, 1993), and 82 species were identified from

20 samples trawled between 389 and 1859 m in

1991-92 (Cartes and Sorbe, 1999), compared with

the 22 species identified from 27 hauls in the Levant

Sea. All but one of the amphipod species collected

during the IOLR monitoring surveys,

Stegophaloides christianiensis, have been recorded

from the Catalan Sea. The dominant species on the

upper part of the lower slope (1250-1355 m) in the

Catalan Sea was Rhachotropis caeca, whereas on

the lower part (1860 m) Ileraustroe ilergetes and

Rhachotropis caeca predominate (Cartes and Sorbe,

1999). Ileraustroe ilergetes is the most common and

prevalent species in the Levant Sea, present in 86%

of the samples, as compared with 6.3 and 20.8%

respectively in the upper and lower parts of the

lower slope of the Catalan Sea. However, whereas

R. caeca appears in 36.3% of the samples taken

between 1250 and 1355 m on the Catalan slope, and

its congener, R. rostrata, in only 4.3% of these sam-

ples, along the Levantine coast their abundance is

reversed: R. caeca is present in 33% of the samples

whereas R. rostrata is present in over half. The next

most common species on the lower slope in the

Catalan Sea, Bathymedon sp. A and Andaniexix

mimonectes, are entirely absent from our samples.

Only four species collected in our study are

Mediterranean endemics, whereas of the 154 deep

sea amphipods known from the Mediterranean as a

whole, 71 are endemic species (Bellan-Santini,

1990).

Cumaceans

Twenty-eight bathyal cumacean species were

reported from a survey of the muddy bottoms of the

slope (552-1808 m) of the Catalan sea (Cartes and

Sorbe, 1993), and 32 species were identified from

21 samples trawled between 389 and 1859 m in

1991 and 1992 (Cartes, 1997), compared with the 12

species identified from 27 hauls in the Levant Sea.

All of the cumacean species collected during the

THE BATHYAL FAUNA OF THE LEVANTINE SEA

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IOLR monitoring surveys have been recorded from

the Catalan Sea. The dominant species on the lower

slope in the Catalan Sea was Cyclaspis longicauda-

ta (Cartes and Sorbe, 1993, 1997), whereas only 11

specimens were identified in our samples. The most

common and abundant species in the Levantine

samples, Procampylaspis bonnieri, was more com-

mon on the middle slope (862-989 m) than on the

lower slope in the Catalan sea (Cartes and Sorbe,

1993). The characteristic bathyal cumacean assem-

blage in the western Mediterranean, consisting of C.

longicaudata,  P. bonnieri,  P. armata,  Bathycuma

brevirostre  and Platysympus typicus, is somewhat

modified in the Levant Sea, where C. longicaudata

is replaced by Makrokylindrus longipes, the latter

species again being more common on the middle

slope than on the lower slope in the Catalan sea

(Cartes and Sorbe, 1993, 1997).

Molluscs

Salas (1996:90) found that the molluscan fauna

in the Alboran Sea “becomes scarce below 1000 m

with hardly more than one living specimen per haul,

and the deepest samples at 1433 … and 1742 m …

were barren”. Di Geronimo et al. (2001), who exam-

ined the composition and depth range of molluscs

from the bathyal thanatocoenoses of the southern

Tyrrhenian Sea, have established that the most com-

mon benthic species at 1139-1536 m were, in

descending order, Benthonella tenella, Kelliella

abyssicola, Ennucula corbuloides, and Microgloma

tumidula, of which only the first two species occur

in our samples. The most common benthic molluscs

at depths greater than 1000 m off the Israeli coast

are the Atlanto-Mediterranean and Boreal

Benthonella tenella, Kelliella abyssicola, Yoldia

micrometrica, Cardyomia costellata, Entalina

tetragona, Benthomangelia macra, and  Bathyarca

pectunculoides. The same species were identified by

Janssen (1989) in material sampled by boxcore at a

station off the Israeli coast at 1217 m. Though all are

present in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, except for

the first three species, they are rather rare (Di

Geronimo et al., 2001).

Levantine low-diversity, low-density

deep water fauna

“The floro-faunistic impoverishment of the east-

ern Mediterranean compared with the western

Mediterranean richness in species” (Sarà, 1985) has

been generally accepted, as well as the perception of

a gradational decrease from west to east that is more

conspicuous for the deep benthos than for the whole

fauna (Fredj and Laubier, 1985): a survey of the

biota of the Balearic basin and the western and east-

ern Ionian Sea at depths between 1000 and 1500 m

has shown that the biomass of demersal decapods

was 48268, 17440 and 4376 g km

2

respectively

(Company et al., 2004). 

The low-diversity, low-density Levantine deep

water fauna has long been presumed to be the poor-

est in the Mediterranean (Fredj, 1974). It was recog-

nised that the scanty data may be due to sparse

research efforts, that the “the different parts of the

deep Mediterranean have not been equally sampled”

(Fredj and Laubier, 1985), and that a particularly

“limited amount of sampling [was] carried out in the

eastern basins” (Bellan-Santini, 1990). It was even

suggested that “[t]he relative species richness of …

faunas of the different sectors of Mediterranean is

better correlated with the level of research effort

than the true species richness” (Bellan-Santini,

1990). As late as 1989 it was still possible for

Klausewitz to wonder “whether an ecological or a

geographical factor may be the reason for this limit-

ed distribution or whether the low number of zoo-

logical resp. [sic] oceanographical stations and

research ships in the eastern half of the

Mediterranean provides the reason for the lack of

records.” However, considering the sampling effort,

the diverse gear used and the extended period of

sampling, we may assume that the low number of

species and specimens recorded does not stem sole-

ly from selective or inefficient gear, and is unlikely

to increase much with additional surveys using sim-

ilar sampling gear, though the number may be aug-

mented by using other sampling methods.

Bathymetric distribution of the Levantine

deep water fauna

As early as 1893 Marenzeller reported that

species occur deeper in the Levant than elsewhere in

the Mediterranean. Marenzeller’s records were con-

sidered suspect, an artefact resulting from a “sys-

tematic mistake on the depth measurements” that

“needs to be cleared up in the future” (Fredj and

Laubier, 1985: 128). Recent studies published

greater depth records in the Levantine Sea than in

the western Mediterranean for 14 serpulid species,

with a third of the depth extensions > 400 m (Ben

Eliahu and Fiege, 1996). Twenty-two fish species

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