Density of Living Aquatic Organisms

Abstract

FOR some reason, the determination of the density of aquatic organisms has always presented to biologists a really difficult problem. The usual method has been to kill or narcotize the organisms and find the rate at which they sank in a liquid of known density, or alternatively to find a liquid of such density that the organisms floated or rather just did not sink in it. The density of the liquid was taken as the density of the organism. Neither of these methods need, I think, be seriously considered further. They may be suitable for minerals but scarcely for living organisms.