Talk:Krill/Archive 1

older entries
This article is about the group of krill, important animals of the plankton. It covers the different species in all areas of the world, their taxonomy, geographical distribution, morphology, behaviour, life cycle, ecology and economy. I started the article in May 2003 and many contributed since, especially user:Lupo did a great job. Uwe Kils 23:49, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

Of the four listed possibilities for the word "krill", aren't the first three all the same? Antarctic krill is clearly just a type of krill, and that's what (baleen) whales eat. The only ambiguity seems to be between krill (the animal) and Krill (the fictional character). It strikes me that when someone uses the word "krill", they almost always mean the crustacean, and almost never the character (a google search gives the first non-crustacean entry on the second page, and that's an Australian band). Let's have the current Euphausiid article at krill, with a sentence at the end saying "Krill is also a character in ElfQuest..." Any objections?--Stemonitis 08:25, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * good idea Uwe Kils 10:52, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)


 * Done. Let's see how it works. --Stemonitis 08:23, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Hm. Don't know what you did, but the article was still at Euphausiid, and Krill was redirecting there. Our general policy is to have articles of animals at the common name, with the scientific name(s) redirecting there. I did the move, and expanded the Krill article, and moved that ElfQuest thingy over to Krill (disambiguation). Lupo 20:17, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Filter feeding
Thanks a lot for your help, Uwe. I see you changed "These filters need to be very fine indeed, for krill feed primarily on phytoplankton, in particular on diatoms, which are unicellular algae" to "These filters can be very fine indeed, for Antarctic krill feeds..." and later on (in Ecology) you state that Northern krill feeds on larger zooplankton (and hence doesn't need such a fine filter).

Is this truly specific to Euphausia superba, or does the very fine filter apply to all species of the genus Euphausia? See e.g. (Weier 2005), p. 3, where they state that (in the sidebar) for E. pacifica. If so, I'd suggest "These filters can be very fine indeed in those species (such as Euphausia spp.) that feed primarily on phytoplankton, in particular on diatoms, which are unicellular algae)." What do you think?


 * only e.s has such an extreme fine net, m.n, is much coarser, and you can see the gut is red, from the crustaceans they prey on. Can you arrange the Hempel lit in the article, then I will ask Hempel to review and add stuff


 * Yes, I understood that M.n. has a coarser filter. What about E. pacifica? (See here for my source.) Lupo 07:07, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I do not know, will ask arround Uwe Kils 13:38, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Your work is appreciated
Just want to say that the work that has been done on the Krill and Antarctic Krill articles has been brilliant. These articles have come on enormously. I never Knew Krill existed until about a week ago and now i feel a hint of dare i say affection for the little critters (probably going a bit too far). Anyway well done to all who have contributed especially Kils and Lupo. Big up the Krill massive! Yakuzai 23:00, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Taste?
How do krill taste? Like shrimp? I'm really curious! --Salleman 07:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Google "+krill +taste" is your friend: Answers to miscellaneous questions on krill. To really experience it, you'd have to eat some krill, though :-) Lupo 08:19, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I think they taste very good, they have a stronger taste than shrimp. We ate them raw, with the skin on, just with a few drops of lemon - the Norwegian paste is very good on bread - In New York city we found them dried, they are good on salad Uwe Kils 12:28, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * Is it cheaper than shrimps? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.118.191.48 (talk) 17:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

FAC stuff
Thanks for addressing my issues so quickly. Because I feel like I've already taken up too much space on FAC, I thought I'd write here instead. There are two remaining issues: Dave (talk) 16:02, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that an individual krill would make for a better picture at the top because many readers may want a mental image of these organisms from the very beginning. If a reader didn't know what krill looked like, the image currently at the top wouldn't help much.  The best solution may be moving the swarming image to behavior and adding a new picture at the top.  Obviously, it's still up to you, and I'll support the article either way.
 * Well, we have two good images of single krill: Northern krill and Antarctic krill. I didn't want to use the first, because it is already used at Euphausidae, too, and the second, because I wanted a clear distinction between the already featured article on Antarctic krill and this general article. So far my reasoning... I won't revert it if anybody inserts either picture, but if people really insist on an image of a single krill, I'd prefer an image of some other krill species. Lupo 16:55, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
 * How does the footnote thing work? {mn|name for the computer|name in blue} for the link and then the same thing at the bottom with mnb instead of mn?  I may even go back and change the references on Myxobolus cerebralis to match these.
 * That's pretty much it, except I used mnb2 at the bottom because I didn't like the cryptic sign to get back. I still can't figure out what it's supposed to be. So I settled for the symbolic name itself to provide the backlink. Lupo 16:55, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

That makes sense. If I can find a free picture of some other krill, I may add it. But You're probably right about reusing pictures. Thanks for the tip on the footnotes. Dave (talk) 17:10, July 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * High-quality krill images other than those taken by Uwe are hard to find. I have e-mailed the photographer of these three images, asking him whether he'd release them under the terms of the GFDL. (These images were taken during a NOAA OceanExplorer expedition in 2002, but since I cannot find them on any NOAA web site, I must assume that he retains the copyright.) I hope he does; if so, I intend to use the stunning image of Thysanoessa longipes as the lead-in image. It might take a while until he answers, though; unless I'm mistaken, he's on another OceanExplorer cruise right now. Alternatively, there are these two images taken by one Dan Martin, a U.S. scientific diver who participated in a U.S. research programme at Palmer Station, but again I have been unable to ascertain the copyright status of these images. Lupo 15:16, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
 * (Update 11:23, August 15, 2005 (UTC)) Dr. Hopcroft has indeed replied and agreed to license the three images of Thysanoessa spp. under the GFDL, and has even sent me a "bonus" image of the gills of a krill! Thanks very much to Fairbanks! Lupo 11:23, August 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * You're a credit to Wikipedia. Thanks for your hard work.  Dave (talk) 13:51, July 14, 2005 (UTC)


 * (Edit conflict) I have replaced the lead-in image by another image of a Northern krill. I had asked for a GFDL release, and the photographer has agreed. Lupo 13:54, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * BTW, I have placed the swarm image in the "Distribution" section instead of in the "Behaviour" section because I didn't want two images of different sizes there, and I didn't want to make it too small either. Lupo 13:59, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

I thought this bit from the FAC discussion would be better here now, since the article has been promoted. And by the way, congrats on that and another great article.
 * Oh and now that I'm curious, do you have any more info on the mechanism of bioluminescence Krill have? - Taxman Talk 12:18, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. No, I don't, and neither does Wikipedia: Bioluminescence is silent on the issue of the precise mechanism(s). However, from one of the extlks of that article I found this page, which explains it all. How authoritative that website is, I do not know. I have never seen the term "euphausiid shrimp" for "krill" before... Lupo 15:19, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, Bioluminescence doesn't cover it, but [[Luciferin does. It says the same thing your link does, that "euphesiid shrimp" use Dinoflagellate luciferin. It appears to have used the same link you found as it's source. The UCSB site isn't as good as a journal paper or something, but is a very reputable institution, so I don't think it's too bad a source. I guess this article could use a couple sentances expanding on the Luciferin and luciferase mechanism, and noting the specific type of luciferin if "euphesiid shrimp" really does mean krill or another source can confirm that. This one confirms krill uses that form of luciferin, but again, it is not a peer reviewed source. If someone has got the tools to research this more, that would be great, or if you want to go with what we have, adding a bit more on this would be great I think. - Taxman Talk 15:48, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Taxman, thanks a lot for this most intriguing question. As so often, you've found the (or a) weak spot of the article right away. I don't have the time right now to fix this (will do so next week); Googling for "+bioluminescence +euphausiid" turned up quite a few interesting sites, e.g., , or also , which has some minor stuff on the life cycle phases, too. I'll also keep looking for peer-reviewed publications... Searching for "photophores" might also yield useful results. Lupo 19:13, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Those are all great links. I don't know that we need to expand it too much more now in this article, though I am quite intruiged now. I've always found bioluminescence interesting, ever since I first saw foxfire on some rotting wood as a child. Seeing the small note in this article about the bioluminescence piqued my curiosity. Maybe the only thing we should expand now is a bit on there being 10 photophores, maybe more on the organ's structure and note the specific type of luciferin, if we can confirm it to be Dinoflagellate luciferin. A subpage of the UCSB page give this tidbit "A modified form of this luciferin is also found in herbivorous euphausiid shrimp, perhaps indicating a dietary link for the acquisition of luciferin." which is also interesting. I should also be more careful and go back and cite my additions, but I'll await what else you can find. - Taxman Talk 19:54, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Great bioluminescence section. I've slightly expanded and referenced it. Lupo 11:15, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Keystone?
Can someone explain why krill are considered a keystone species. They are clearly the most important species in the ecosystem, but that is not realy what makes a keystone. That is more a foundation species. A species is usually considered a keystone if its impact on the ecosystem is disproportionate to its abundance. Given that krill are possibly the most successful species on earth, it's hard to imagine their impact being disproportionately large relative to their biomass. Jmeppley 08:15, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Krill is not a primary producer. Why would it be a foundation species, then? However, I think keystone species is right. First, that article itself says "The defninition [sic] given here is somewhat qualitative in nature because there is not yet an accepted, rigourous definition." Second, this article gives an explanation. I must admit, though, that I do not know whether that would be true globally or be applicable basically only to the Antarctic krill... maybe ask User:Kils, if you can locate him; he doesn't seem to edit much anymore. Lupo 08:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Good point about not being a primary producer, so foundation species is not appropriate here. However on a different technicality, krill are not a species, they are an order, so I don't see how they can be a keystone species.

although beyond technicalities, this artcile says They are considered a keystone species near the bottom of the food chain because they feed on phytoplankton and zooplankton, converting these into a form suitable for many larger animals for whom krill makes up the largest part of their diet. To me this explains why they are important to the ecosystem, but I don't see how it satisfies the idea of dissporportionate importance and impact.

I did a brief literature search last night and found many articles refer to krill as keystone species without any reference and then move one. The ones that do offer support talk only about the Antarctic Ecosystem. Even then the idea seems to be that they convert all the plankton into a form that larger predators can use. While this is critical, because of their enormous abundance, it is not disproportionate. In a follow up on a 1994 meeting on keystone species, Robert Paine, who originated the concept in 1969, says: The concept's potential significance to conser- vation biologists is that it designates species that exert influences on the associated assemblage, often including numerous indirect effects, out of proportion to the key- stone's abundance or biomass. Jmeppley 17:10, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it true that the euphausidae family has the largest biomass than any other multi-cellular animal family? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.118.191.48 (talk) 17:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Missing whales
I would like to have heard something about the way the decline (and recovery?) of whale populations over the last 200 years has affected the krill resources. Lots of missing whales must have some significant impact. nicransby 01:42, 05 March 2007 (UTC)

The Book Of General Ignorance
Back in July, one Willy turner made a few edits to the krill page citing The Book of General Ignorance as a source. The edits are all plausible, but sound more like an attempt to be funny to me. His talk page is littered with notices of pages he created getting deleted and a few questions about the veracity of his changes, but no outright claims of vandalism. I'm backing the changes out for now, because I don't think The Book of General Ignorance is a legitimate source for an encyclopedia article. If someone can confirm any of his changes, please put them back in with a good source. Jmeppley 19:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Fix
Will someone please deal with this edit; I'm struggling to keep up with this editor. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 19:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Phytanic acid levels?
Does anyone know where the phytanic acid levels in krill or oils derived from krill could be found? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hpharlan (talk • contribs) 16:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Krill Oil as Dietary Supplement
I added a few sentences about krill oil as a dietary supplement. In my opinion the two clinical trials have flaws, so I did not describe any of the results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by David notMD (talk • contribs) 16:32, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Estimated Krill Population, Worldwide
I've seen a few sites quoting this: "number of krill: 500 million tons / ~1.5 g each * 907.18X10^3 g / ton = 302.393 trillion" - yet it seems to be a measure for only one species (of 85) of krill. Is that correct? If so, is there an estimate for the total number of krill in the world, across all species?

Phylogeny
At Featured article review/Krill/archive1, people asked questions about the phylogeny of krill.

I can't do anything about that, not knowing anything about it and not having access to the relevant literature. It appears that User:Squidonius might have the knowledge needed&mdash;at least it appears from his edits at Malacostraca that he does have access to the literature needed. Some other info is at. On Nyctiphanes, there is, and on E. recurva, E. vallentini, and E. lucens, there is which may (or may not; I'm really out of my waters here) have relevant info.

Krill do not have a fossil record. See Jarman 2001 (it's the abstract of one of the articles I don't have access to). At everything2 somebody claims that "only one krill fossil has ever been found. It was eaten by a fish and fossilized within it." I have no idea what the source for that claim might be. Lupo 11:58, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Lupo, as a quick note, do you know about WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request? There are editors there who have access to many journal articles that they will freely share - it is a resource that I use fairly frequently and have been pleasantly surprised with the results. If the other editor you mention does not have access to the source, trying the resource request board would probably be a good option. Nice work on the article so far! Dana boomer (talk) 02:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * My not having access to the literature is just part of my problem with phylogeny. The other, and even more important, part is that I don't know nothing about it. It'd be really good if someone who already has some knowledge in this area could do this&mdash;the result would be so much better than if I, with no prior knowledge whatsoever, tried to read up on the subject, tried to make some sense of it, and then tried to write it up. Lupo 07:35, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S.: Forgot to mention that I have asked User:Squidonius for help with this matter. Lupo 07:40, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Lupo, Thanks for the compliment, but I am not really an expert and sorry for the delay. Anyway, Regarding the Phylogeny,
 * in the archive someone mentioned Lemur as an example, Lemurs (the suborder Strepsirrhini) is the "oldest" branch of the primate tree, which makes them interesting as they give a hint toward what an ancestral primate looked like, Crustaceans and humans have little in common so there may not be much interest in the phylogeny of krill.
 * regarding the internal phylogeny of the clade in "Patarnello T, Bargelloni L, Varotto V, Battaglia B, Krill evolution and the Antarctic ocean currents: Evidence of vicariant speciation as inferred by molecular data, MARINE BIOLOGY   Volume: 126    Issue: 4    Pages: 603-608    Published: OCT 1996 " there is the tree you are looking for...(will delete soon as I uploaded it in violation, so a copy will have to be drawn)


 * it is definetely monophyletic, I'll see what I can put together.
 * regarding the location of the clade in regards to the malacostraca, the information is in the malacostraca phylogeny section. But would it be better for krills and friends, if that section were it's own short page like in the lemur page?
 * I am happy to take up the task, I am quite busy this week but I will try and see what I can find this week (I have to search around to see if I can find more).

--Squidonius (talk) 00:36, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Correction, the graph was taken from "D'Amato, M. Eugenia; Harkins, Gordon W.; de Oliveira, Tulio; Teske, Peter R.; Gibbons, Mark J.. Marine Biology, Molecular dating and biogeography of the neritic krill Nyctiphanes. Aug2008, Vol. 155 Issue 2, p243-247" --Squidonius (talk) 00:42, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Just take your time. BTW, the D'Amato et al. paper is available here. Lupo 21:56, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Distribution
"Krill occur worldwide in all oceans; most species have cosmopolitan distributions, although several species have endemic or neritic restricted distributions."

Are there examples of species with endemic distribution and/or species with neritic distributions? And references? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.226.110.182 (talk) 00:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The text following this phrase was supposed to give examples. Just removing it without doing at least some simple google research isn't really helpful. "+krill +neritic" turns up quite a few useful links, and so does "+krill +endemic". I rather wonder about the "cosmopolitan distribution". While Krill occur worldwide, does any single species? Lupo 21:53, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not interested in neritic species, only in cosmopolitan species such as Bentheuphausia amblyops. Thank for advising me to do google searches. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.226.110.182 (talk) 22:45, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Cool, so there seems to be a "cosmopolitan" species. Hadn't found anything with googling... B. amblyops appears not to occur in the Arctic and Antarctic seas according to Mauchline 1971. Is that still up to date? Lupo 06:54, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

झिंगा
I've removed the following recent addition:
 * In Marathi, it is referred as 'Zinga (झिंगा)'- which is Red in colour -or- ' Jawala/Javala (जवळा)'- which is White in colour. Coastal Maharashtra people consider the fried krill recipe as delicacy and it is often served with rice flatbed- Bhakari

Reason: from mr:झिंगा, it seems to me that this is about shrimp or prawns, not about Krill. ,, and confirm this suspicion. The last link states "Jawala" was the local name for Acetes indicus (see also Acetes). Lupo 20:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Cladogram
Where is Euphausia on this diagram? Is "Eudoeuphasia" a typo and should be "Euphausia"? Lupo 10:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Answering my own question: yes, apparently a typo. Maas & Waloszek's 2001 paper is available online here. Lupo 10:30, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that typo. I added that tree over the one of Casanova 1984, Jarman 2001 and D'amato 2008 due to the quantity of species, the last two are DNA and lack Bentheuphasia and other key species, however Casanova is a the big name. I hope the additions are good and the few morphological notes do not anticipate the Morphology section. If there are any papers needed please email, e.g. Casanova 2003 (french though) is a nice summary of krill.--Squidonius (talk) 21:36, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, thank you for writing these sections! It's a bit over my head, though. Lupo 09:45, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe a mistake in Japanese and improvement
The last line of the header is a broken sentence as it mentions two countries but give the name for one, it would be better if it were... In Japan and Russia, krill is also used for human consumption, in the former it is known as okiami (オキアミ)[1] while in the latter it is know as kril (криль) [viz. google translate]. Additionally, note No.1 may be written incorrectly, I thought that scientific names (the Graeco-Latin names) are language-independent. My Japanese is only beginner-level, so I was amused by the name being in katakana, the foreign word alphabet, yet it does not sound anything like krill, checking on the Japanese page, reveals it is from the kanji 沖醤蝦 (so there is an extra piece of info!). The second name moku does not seem written correctly, as 目 (chinese has 1 syllable =1 character, not Japanese) means moku = order. I think this sentence is what should be on here: "殻ごと干した干しエビ、調味用の魚醤 （蝦醤、トラシなど）や塩辛の原料としても知られる", which I think it says "It is also (も) known (知られる) as a material (原料) of dried shrimp (殻ごと干し)or dried shrimp shell (た + 干しエビ), fish sauce (魚醤) to for seasoning (調味 + 用 + の) (shrimp sauce (蝦醤), shrimp paste (トラシ), etc (ど)) and (や) salted fish (塩辛, <-this has a picture of a whitebate-like dish). Can anyone improve on this? --Squidonius (talk) 08:41, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just checked the japanese pages and for salted fish, there is a section on shrimps and there it is mentioned black on white that some species are not technically shrimp but mysidaceans and krill, the latter dish is called ツノナシオキアミ, so there is a nice name to add! --Squidonius (talk) 08:50, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That footnote originally read "The scientific name Euphausiacea is okiamime(オキアミ目) in Japanese." Source: (you may need to switch the character encoding to Japanese manually in your browser; at least I needed to do so). It was changed to "okiami moku" here. It should probably state that that's the Japanese name of the order. And if it's entirely incorrect, it should be removed altogether. Lupo 10:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not unusual for things like okiami to be written in katakana, which is used also for various formal terms when the kanji are unusual and hiragana might look childish. The latin names are are used internationally, in Japan too, but for convenience there are japanese translations of many of the names. However I'd already boldly deleted that note, as being cruft. The picture of the pink things on rice may or may not be krill, they are small shrimplike Crustacea. I'd say it is better to include fewer details of translations in various languages Zeimusu | Talk page 21:23, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Do krills feel cold?
I was having a discussion with my friend, and we decided that we were not sure whether or not krills can feel cold. Do krills feel cold?

Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.38.208.114 (talk) 17:41, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Q&A should be directed at Reference_desk/Science, this section if for discussion of the article. Regarding your question, most animals can sense temperature in order to avoid temperatures which can harm them, but the acceptable temperature for a krill are lower than the acceptable temperature for a human, so in brief "yes, but not at temperature you do". --Squidonius (talk) 20:42, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

In section on human consumption it states that exo skelton are high in flourides. As bottom of food chain that could affect fish that eat krill. Does this mean that these fish are then high in flourides and unsuitable for mass consumption and if not why not ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.31.202.145 (talk) 11:52, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Etymology wrong
According to The official Norwegian dictionary, krill is derived from the icelandic word krili, meaning Little thing. Should I just change this, or will someone have a word first? Rkarlsba (talk) 16:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)