Full-depth profiles of zooplankton numerical abundance and major taxa composition are presented with special attention to the dominant copepod fauna, for directly comparable data sets from sites to a depth of 4 300 m in the Levantine and Red Seas, which are also compared with the deep mid-latitude NE Atlantic. Copepods showed highest proportions of calanoids, cyclopoids sensu lato and harpacticoids in the 333 mum net subsurface samples from the Atlantic. Among the calanoids as the predominant group, there was a distinctly disproportionate, extended and depth-related sequence of zonal dominance by one single species of a family each at mesopelagic and bathypelagic depths in the Levantine Sea and the Red Sea. The mass occurrence of dormant Eucalanus monachus specimens in the Levantine Sea can be related to the presence of mesoscale gyres. The coexistence of resulting mosaic-like mesoscale communities of a ''boreal'' and a ''tropical'' design distinguishes the Levantine from the Red Sea, where eddies obviously do not significantly influence the relative proportions of dominant species of the deep-living mesozooplankton. Hence, on a larger scale, the open Red Sea seems to be the more stable system, hydrographically as well as ecologically, with the exception of its northern and southern ends where increased environmental variability affects the basic faunistic structures of deep-living mesozooplankton.