The term "Krill" comes from the Norwegian word for "young fish" (Nicol and Endo 1997). Today the term krill is commonly used for euphausiids, a family of more than 80 species of open-ocean crustaceans that are found throughout Earth. This website will exclusively deal with the species found exclusively in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica- Euphausia seperba. Even though Antarctic Krill only reach a maximum size of 65 mm (2.5 inches) and a weigh roughly 2 grams individually, however, models have shown that in terms of biomass, up to 500 million tons of Antarctic krill can be found in the Southern Ocean. This species has a profound impact on ecosystems as they serve as a trophic "platform" in which a number of Antarctic species base their life cycles and existence on.
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| Picture: George F. Mobley, National Geographic |
Antarctic Krill reside is some of the most highly productive waters in the world (Nicol and De La mare 1993). Due to extreme climatic conditions of the Antarctic, the population is difficult to study and other than dependence of larger marine vertebrates on krill, the role of this keystone species may be not fully discovered.
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| Euphausia superba geographic distribution in red |
