Zooplankton was collected along five transects starting from the Laptev Sea continental shelf over the shelf break into the deep Eastern Nansen and Amundsen Basins . Sampling was carried out between 12 August and 22 September, 1993 during the cruise with RV "Polarstern" (ARK-IX/4). Five depth strata from the bottom or 1500 m to the surface were sampled in vertical manner with a multiple opening-closing net (Multinet Midi, Hydrobios, Kiel, 0.25 m**2 mouth opening, 150 µm mesh). Regular depth intervals on the outer shelf were 0-10-25-50-100-200 m. At the deep stations (>500 m) depth layers 0-25-50-200-500-1500 m (or bottom) were sampled. The zooplankton samples were preserved in 4% borax-buffered formalin. All zooplankton organisms from a sample were sorted to main taxonomical groups and for copepods further to species and stage level. Numerous zooplankton organisms were counted from an aliquot (the smallest one was 1:32) of a sample, while rare organisms were counted from the whole sample. Calanus finmarchicus and C. glacialis copepodite stages IV-VI were separated by prosome length according to Tande et al. (1985): CV > 3.0 mm and females > 3.2 were determined as C. glacialis.