We reviewed photographic images of fishes from depths of 381–2282 m in Marguerite Bay and 405–2007 m in the Amundsen Sea. Marguerite Bay fishes were 33% notothenioids and 67% non-notothenioids. Channichthyids (47%) and nototheniids (44%) were the most abundant notothenioids. The deep-living channichthyid Chionobathyscus dewitti (74%) and the nototheniid genus Trematomus (66%) were the most abundant taxa within these two families. The most abundant non-notothenioids were the macrourid Macrourus whitsoni (72%) and zoarcids (18%). Amundsen Sea fishes were 87% notothenioids and 13% non-notothenioids, the latter exclusively Macrourus whitsoni. Bathydraconids (38%) and artedidraconids (30%) were the most abundant notothenioids. We observed that Macrourus whitsoni was benthopelagic and benthic and infested by large ectoparasitic copepods. Juvenile (42 cm) Dissostichus mawsoni was not neutrally buoyant and resided on the substrate at 1277 m. Lepidonotothen squamifrons was seen near and on nests of eggs in early December. A Pogonophryne sp. from 2127 m was not a member of the deep-living unspotted P. albipinna group. Chionobathyscus dewitti inhabited the water column as well as the substrate. The pelagic zoarcid Melanostigma gelatinosum was documented in the water column a few metres above the substrate. The zoogeographic character of the Marguerite Bay fauna was West Antarctic or low-Antarctic and the Amundsen Sea was East Antarctic or high-Antarctic.

Muscle tissue samples were collected from Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni Norman) and Patagonian toothfish (D. eleginoides Smitt) in 1998 and from D. mawsoni and three of its prey species - Whitson's grenadier (Macrourus whitsoni (Regan)), ice fish (Chionobathyscus dewitti Andriashev & Neyelov), and blue antimora (Antimora rostrata (Günther)) - in 2006 to determine their mercury. Mercury levels were highly variable both within and between the five species studied but were positively correlated with fish length in four of the species. Once the factors length and year had been accounted for, the mercury levels in D. eleginoides were more than four times greater than in D. mawsoni. The low levels of mercury in D. mawsoni relative to its prey species and the four-fold difference in mercury concentrations between it and D. eleginoides were unexpected. Reasons for these different levels of bioaccumulation were explored including differences in diet, growth and longevity, and location. Differences in bioaccumulation between the two toothfish species could be explained partly through differences in their geographic distribution and differences in trophic position. However, the low levels of mercury in D. mawsoni relative to its prey species can only be explained by a lower rate of mercury assimilation and/or a higher rate of mercury elimination by D. mawsoni.