Polychaeta and Oligochaeta of the Auckland and Campbell Islands, New Zealand, 1941-1945

Occurrence
Latest version published by Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node on Apr 30, 2020 Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node

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Description

This report is based on the collections of specimens and data in the Auckland and Campbell Islands in the years 1941-45. Early in 1941, coast-watching stations were established at Port Ross, Carnley Harbour, and Perseverance Harbour, and the personnel of from three to five men at each were relieved once a year. Standing instructions issued by the Navy Office included a recommendation that the men should, in addition to service routine, record general observations on natural phenomena. This report is regarded as of the Cape Expedition which was the war-time code name for parties in the field between 1941 and 1945.

The marine worms in this dataset come from 17 species. Marine worms had been described from the results of gatherings in two previous expeditions to these Subantarctic Islands. The first of these contains a report of 18 species by Mortensen based on a 1907 expedition; the second reported on 55 species by Augener in 1925. In this dataset, there is one species not hitherto recorded.

The land worms collected represent only nine species belonging to seven genera. One of which is living in freshwater. The comparative smallness of the collection reflects that fact that expedition members had other matters to attend to. The majority of the specimens were preserved in alcohol, but several containers had apparently been neglected and the original preservative had not been changed, so that the creatures were in a state unfit for identification.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 62 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

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How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Benham W B (2020): Polychaeta and Oligochaeta of the Auckland and Campbell Islands, New Zealand, 1941-1945. v1.1. Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. Dataset/Occurrence. https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=campauckpolycheataoligochaeta&v=1.1

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: d4bc99fa-705a-48fe-b4c3-248729a532de.  Southwestern Pacific Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) Node publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Ocean Biodiversity Information System.

Keywords

Occurrence; Observation

Contacts

W. B. Benham
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Professor Emeritus of Biology
University of Otago
NZ

Geographic Coverage

Auckland and Campbell Islands, New Zealand

Bounding Coordinates South West [-52.61, 165.941], North East [-50.489, 169.267]

Taxonomic Coverage

Polychaeta and Oligochaeta

Class Polychaeta, Clitellata

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 1941-01-01 / 1945-01-01

Project Data

The Cape Expedition was the deliberately misleading name given to a secret five-year wartime program of establishing coastwatching stations on New Zealand’s more distant uninhabited subantarctic islands. The decision to do so was made by the New Zealand Government's War Cabinet in December 1940, with the program terminating at the end of the Pacific War in 1945.

Title Cape Expedition
Study Area Description Three stations were established, at Ranui Cove in Port Ross at the northern end, and at Carnley Harbour at the southern end, of Auckland Island, and at Perseverance Harbour, Campbell Island. The stations were small, with four men (increased to five in the second year) at each. At first the coastwatchers were civilians, but all were attested as privates in the New Zealand Army from December 1942. The stations consisted of portable prefabricated huts with double plywood walls and double windows. Each station also had a dinghy with an outboard motor. Because it was understood that resupplying them could be problematic and sporadic, the stations were provided with three years' supply of food, clothing and other consumables. A larger vessel, the 57-ton MV Ranui with a crew of four, was based at Waterfall Inlet in the Aucklands to serve as a link between the stations and, in an emergency, the outside world.
Design Description Although no enemy ships were sighted during the duration of the program, the secondary work carried out by the coastwatchers proved successful. From June 1942 the stations began reporting weather conditions daily; the reports were so valuable that in the third year of the program trained meteorologists joined the relief parties. Surveyors, geologists and naturalists also became part of the program, during the fourth and fifth years of which a special party of three completed the survey of the island groups. When the coastwatchers were demobilised on 15 October 1945 and withdrawn, the Campbell Island station was retained as part of New Zealand's weather forecasting service. Many of the scientific results garnered through the work of the Cape Expedition's coastwatchers were later published by the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in its Cape Expedition Series of bulletins. Ornithologist and museum director Robert Falla had been involved in organising the expedition.

The personnel involved in the project:

Robert Falla

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Benham, W.B. (1950) Polychaeta and Oligochaeta of the Auckland and Campbell Islands, Cape Expedition Series, Bulletin No. 10, 35pp.

Additional Metadata

marine, harvested by iOBIS

Alternative Identifiers d4bc99fa-705a-48fe-b4c3-248729a532de
https://nzobisipt.niwa.co.nz/resource?r=campauckpolycheataoligochaeta