plutonium in aquatic primary consumers are much higher than values established for secondary and tertiary consumers. suggested (Li 77, Bo 76) It has also been that some aquatic bottom feeders have higher body burdens of plutonium than fish that rarely feed on the bottom. Mullet indiscrimiately feed by scooping up the surface benthos to extract organic Matter from the sediments. Since it was not practical to collect and analyze a large number of species of reef fish at the Atoll, we felt, for the reasons suggested above by others, that the concentrations of plutonium in mullet could be among the highest encountered in reef species and would therefore serve as useful indicator species for plutonium levels in fish commonly consumed at the Atoll, For interspecies comparison, four snapper (2 male, 2 female), Lethrinus kallopterus, also collected on 25 June 1975 with hook and line from near reef locations between Enewetak Island and Kwajalein Island. Snapper, according to Hiatt and Strasburg (Hi 60), are hovering mid-water carnivores which remain in small schools in specific locations in the deeper water of the lagoon reef. They are secondary consumers and are representative species of the third marine trophic level at the Atoll. The 1972 plutonium concentration in dry eviscerated snapper was 80 + 5 pCi/kg (Ne 73). Specific tissues and organs were disected from the fish which were pooled, weighed, (wet, dry and ash) and analyzed. The ashed samples were counted on Ge (Li) detectors to determine the concentrations of gamma emitting radionuclides associated with the tissues. Each pooled sample was then radiochemically processed (Wo 71) to isolate plutonium. The dry