Feeding of a pelagic chaetognath,Sagitta nagae Alvariño in Suruga Bay,Central Japan

The feeding ofSagitta nagae, the most predominant chaetognath species in Suruga Bay, was studied. Specimens were collected with ORI-100 net (1.0 mm in mesh aperture) and MTD net (0.35 mm in mesh aperture) and were fixed with neutralized formalin. The main food organisms ofSagitta nagae were the copepods,Candacia bipinnata, Calanus pacificus andPareuchaeta russelli. The food-containing ratio (P/T, %) was higher at night and lower in the daytime. Here, P is the number ofSagitta containing food organisms in the gut and T is the total number ofSagitta examined. P/T was almost constant vertically in the upper 100 m layer. P/T was generally influenced neither by food density nor by the copepod numbers perSagitta in this study.Sagitta nagae took food throughout life. Food ingested bySagitta per day was calculated as 37.6% ofSagitta in dry weight.