No Bones

Mantis Shrimp Researcher Visits Invertebrate Zoology

PhD candidate Débora Lucatelli, from Laboratório de Carcinologia, Departamento de Oceanografia Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil, visited the Department of Invertebrate Zoology for the last 5 months investigating the mantis shrimp genus Neogonodactylus (Crustacea, Stomatopoda, Gonodactylidae). Her visit was funded by the Brazilian government’s CAPES program.

Neogonodactylus torus (Manning, 1969), from Bahia, Brazil. Image courtesy of Dr. Alexandre Oliveira de Almeida.

 

The purpose of her visit was to study our collections for her doctoral dissertation entitled: "Taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography and ecology of the genus Neogonodactylus Manning, 1995 (Crustacea - Stomatopoda)".  

Species of Neogonodactylus are found exclusively in shallow, marine waters of the Americas, with 8 eastern Pacific species, and 12 in the western Atlantic. Débora’s study included examination and morphological analysis of all of our Neogonodactylus type specimens. The morphological analysis included Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) of at least one specimen of each species. SEM revealed fascinating details and may help to determine additional characteristics to assist in defining morphological boundaries in similar species.  She also sampled specimens for future DNA analyses. 

SEM of male Neogonodactylus austrinus (Manning, 1969), maxiliped 1 (structure used to clean the animal). Image courtesy of Débora Lucatelli

 

SEM of male Neogonodactylus austrinus (Manning, 1969), petasma (reproductive structure). Image courtesy of Débora Lucatelli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Rafael Lemaitre and Karen Reed

 

Beauty and the Beast – a sea cucumber improves its image by picking up some “bling”

In the deep sea, sea cucumbers are dominant in many habitats.  In great depths they usually have gelatinous and fragile bodies and, when they are collected in dredges and trawls, they may look like formless blobs of jello.  In life though, many of these animals are beautiful – their bizarrely-shaped bodies often violet or purplish, and frequently semi-transparent.  One group of about a dozen species, all formerly in the genus Meseres, cover themselves with things they find on the seafloor.  Different species tend to adorn themselves with a particular type of seafloor debris; one species, for example, covers itself with glassy pieces of the skeletons of sponges, another with the tiny white shells of one-celled foraminiferans called Globigerina.

 

Meseres covered with Clio shells. Northern Gulf of Mexico. Image: NOAA.

On a recent cruise made by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in their ship Okeanos Explorer, a beautiful and presumably new species of Meseres was photographed at two sites, but not collected. This otherwise ordinary-looking animal adorns itself exclusively with the shells of the swimming pteropod mollusk Clio.  When Clio dies in midwater, its body sinks to the seafloor, and the soft parts rot away to expose the 10 mm-wide triangular shell.  Clio is very common in some regions; its shells can litter the seafloor.

 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California has been studying deep-sea animals in the northeastern Pacific for many years.  A colleague there sent us a picture of a sea cucumber that looks exactly like our Gulf of Mexico species – covered with Clio shells.  So our animal, like so many deep-sea species, may have a very wide distribution!

Why do these animals cover themselves?  Camouflage?  But it’s dark down there.  Perhaps a more “crunchy” body might deter some predators?   And how do these animals detect the presence in the area of Clio shells, Globigerina shells, sponge skeletons?  Do they add more things as they grow larger? We really don’t have any answers, but we have a lot of questions!

by Dave Puzzled Pawson

“Charro” and “Cowboy” Hermit Crabs

The  Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP) is a Smithsonian initiative in the island of Curaçao which began in 2011 with support from the Consortium for Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet.  I have been studying hermit crabs and other crabs that have been filmed or photographed using a manned submersible named Curasub, which can dive down to 300 m in depth. A rich and spectacularly colored  fauna of hermit crabs, never seen before alive in their original habitats, has been discovered.

 

These three hermit crabs, affectionately called “The Three Amigos” (in reference to the movie starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short), use tusk shells for housing. The operculate-shaped chelae allows for a tight closure of the shell when the hermit is fully retracted. The scientific name of this species is Pylopagurus discoidalis (A. Milne-Edwards, 1880), a species of the family Paguridae, never before photographed alive [Photo courtesy of Barry Brown]

 

The DROP program is providing an extraordinary and unique opportunity for taxonomists like me to make direct, live observations of many species that have previously been known exclusively from preserved and colorless specimens in museum collections. The study of these samples, such as those of Pylopagurus discoidalis shown here, is serving to expand and complement collaborative studies on hermit crabs systematic from the Caribbean at large. The specimens are being used to obtain molecular data such as barcodes and DNA sequences, which will be useful for biodiversity assessments, long-term faunal monitoring, and evolutionary studies.

 

A specimen of Pylopagurus discoidalis (A. Milne-Edwards, 1880), perhaps playing “cowboy” while riding on top of a sea cucumber Holothuria (Vaneyothuria) lentiginosa enodis Miller & Pawson [Photo courtesy of Barry Brown]

by Rafael Lemaitre

 

Rare “half female, half male” blue crab donated to Invertebrate Zoology

 

Male/Female Blue crab (Callinectes sapidus, USNM 1182904), left side (male) and right side (female). Above: male claw (left) and red female claw (right).

The practice of telling male and female blue crabs apart has been around for many decades, from school kids to experienced watermen. A male is a “Jimmy”, and has an “apron” (abdomen) pointed like the Washington Monument. A female is a “sook”, and has the “apron” rounded like the Capitol Dome, although there’s “Sally”, for those immature (adolescent) female blue crabs that don’t yet have a so rounded “apron”. But there’s no name (yet) for a blue crab that may show half of the Washington Monument and half of the Capitol Dome. However, this story has nothing to do with politics or teenagers, and instead everything to do with the importance of scientific collections.

 

When Mr. Mike Storm, General Manager of Shoreline Seafood Inc., Crofton, Maryland, and experienced seafood dealer, called IZ to offer a blue crab (Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896) that he considered extremely rare because it was “half male and half female”, we knew it would be a valuable addition to our collections. Mike found the specimen in a batch of crabs from the Gulf of Mexico (possibly Louisiana), purchased by his company to be sold or consumed at their Shoreline Seafood market/restaurant. In over 20 years of handling blue crabs from various regions, Mike had only seen a crab like this only once before, and immediately thought it best belonged in a museum and research institution. This bisexual crab was still alive when Mike called, but by the time the IZ crew arrived 2 days later to accept and carry it back to IZ, it had died and the body placed in a freezer.

 

Underside of Blue Crab (Callinectes sapidus, USNM 1182904) showing both female (left side) and male (right side) shaped apron.

We are very grateful to Mike for preventing that his crab end on the table and stomach of one his clients, for indeed the specimen is a rare example of a bilateral gynandromorph Callinectes sapidus. It is now officially deposited under USNM catalog number 1182904, in the IZ alcohol-preserved crustacean collections at the Museum Support Center, and available for study. A bilateral gynandromorph is an animal that contains both male and female characteristics, one side female and other side male, both externally and internally, and each side is different even in having the male or female coloration. The cause of this condition can be traced to very early embryonic development (when the organism has only few cells), and when one of the dividing cells does not split its sex chromosomes normally. This produces one of the two cells with sex chromosomes that cause male development, and the other cell with chromosomes that cause female development.

 

While cases of bilateral gynandromorphs are not uncommon in insects, and have been recorded in birds, only rarely have specimens been reported in the scientific literature for brachyuran crabs. In fact, only one case of a bilateral gynandromorph has been published for Callinectes sapidus, when Sara V. Otto, a scientist from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, recorded a specimen from a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in 1979. A second specimen was found in 2005 by a watermen near Deltaville, Virginia, and given to the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, Gloucester (VIMS), although the case appeared only in news media or VIMS blog, and a formal report was apparently never published. Considering that blue crabs have been fished commercially for more than a century and that male and female crabs are easily distinguished, it must be concluded that bilateral gynandromorphism is extremely rare in this decapod species. This also makes Mike’s crab an extremely valuable specimen.

By Rafael Lemaitre and Karen Reed

Misfires and a Near Miss

Another little story from the history of deep-sea exploration in New Zealand. . . .

The ship NZGSS Hinemoa served from 1875 to 1944.  For many years the Hinemoa surveyed and re-supplied the lighthouses around New Zealand.  She also made numerous dredge hauls over the years, contributing much to knowledge of the deep-sea fauna around New Zealand.  In 1914-1915 Theodor Mortensen* spent two months on board and collected much material. 

In 1944, it was decided that the Hinemoa would be towed out to sea, about 60 miles NE of Christchurch, and sunk.  At the time World War II was raging, and it was thought that this would be a good opportunity for the New Zealand Navy to get in some target practice.  Five minesweepers, with their 4-inch guns, were assembled, and they began firing at the poor old Hinemoa.  A total of 89 shells were fired; 2 hits were scored (!). Later on that day, the “Hinemoa was sunk with explosive charges”.

*On his way back to Denmark in 1915 from his Pacific Expedition, Mortensen sent Austin Clark a postcard from Hawaii, noting that while he was in Australia he had been invited to join the Australian ship Endeavour on a trip to Macquarie Island in the subantarctic.  The Endeavour was to resupply the weather station at Macquarie.  Mortensen thought hard about this invitation; he eventually said no, deciding that the cruise would take too much time.  A good decision, for the Endeavour was lost with all hands soon after leaving Macquarie in late 1914.

by Dave Pawson

New IZ Face Looks Into Eyes -- Jamie Baldwin Fergus

I primarily study topics relating to visual ecology. In my recent dissertation work at Duke University, I studied the roles of color and vision in sexual signaling in the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus.

 

Jamie Baldwin-Fergus

 

As a postdoc supported through the Peter Buck Fellowship program, I will be studying how vision physiology, optical environment, and ecological associations shape visual adaptations in hyperiid amphipods. Hyperiid amphipods are small crustacean invertebrates that are abundant from the surface down to the deepest depths of the oceans, with particular abundance in the twilight zone (200-1000 m). At twilight zone depths, available light is limited to increasingly dim and blue down-welling light and bioluminescence. In this zone, the competition to see and not be seen is a matter of life or death. As a result, hyperiids have huge variation in the shapes and function of their eyes, likely an evolutionary response to the complexities of the midwater optical environment.

 

Cystosoma, a hyperiid amphipod

Generally, hyperiids have two pairs of apposition compound eyes, a dorsal set and a lateral set. In some hyperiids the dorsal eyes are greatly enlarged and cover the entire head. In others fiber optic cables connect the lenses to the retinas or they have cone shaped retinas that allow a 360º field of view. Still others have retinas with mirrors that boost light collection. I will study the visual adaptations of hyperiids to life in the deep sea by examining the morphology, physiology, and behavior of various species spanning the depth distribution of the group. The results from these combined studies will be used in two ways. 1) the optical habitat and visual capabilities of hyperiid species will be modeled to examine the ecological advantages of varied visual adaptations. And 2) visual characteristics will be mapped onto a recently completed reconstruction of the evolutionary history of hyperiids to track adaptations to the different optical environments they experience.

 

Eye variation in hyperiid amphipods

by Jamie Baldwin-Fergus

 

One Cubic Foot of Life in the Dark Depths

Karen J. Osborn wins award to support the development of a cool new exhibit coming to the National Museum of Natural History. The Smithsonian Institution's Women's Committee awarded the grant for work on "A midwater BioCube".  The BioCube concept was developed by photographer David Liittschwager to photo-document all the visible life that passes through a cubic foot of habitat in 24 hours.  His work has been showcased in National Geographic Magazine, National Public Radio, a recent book (A World in One Cubic Foot: Portraits of Biodiversity), and opening in 2014, an exhibit in the Sant Ocean Hall of the National Museum of Natural History.

 

This strikingly beautiful juvenile squid, Planctoteuthis danae, could be one of the animals observed in the midwater BioCube. Animals in this habitat tend to be gelatinous and completely different from their shallow water or terrestrial counterparts. This animal can instantly change from nearly transparent to the orange and red seen here - it was a little ticked off by the paparazzi's camera flashes and showed its displeasure by flashing red.

 

Six marine habitats have been chosen for the exhibit and with this grant, one of those habitats will be the open ocean at 300 m (985 feet) despite the challenges posed in reaching that habitat and documenting the numerous and delicate animals found there.  

The Evolution of Pebblesnails, and a New One

I, in collaboration with a colleague at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, published the first molecular-based evolutionary tree of the western North American pebblesnails, a large freshwater group that is widely distributed in the northwestern part of the continent.  

 

Scanning electron micrographs of shells and opercula of Fluminicola gustafsoni new species. A. Holotype, Salmon River at Pine Bar Rapids, Idaho County, Idaho (USNM 905409). B. Clearwater River at Spaulding Mission pull-off, Nez Perce County, Idaho (USNM 883458). C. Clearwater River, Jim Ford Creek, Clearwater County, Idaho (USNM 1082623). D. Salmon River at Pine Bar Rapids, Idaho County, Idaho (paratype, USNM 1175400) (shell cleaned with bleach). E, F. Shell apex, Clearwater River, Jim Ford Creek, Clearwater County, Idaho (USNM 1082623). G, H. Opercula (outer, inner sides), Clearwater River, Orofino, Clearwater County, Idaho (USNM 883460). Abbreviation: Rm, rim along outer margin. Scale bars A–D = 1.0 mm; E, F = 200 µm, G, H = 1.0 mm.

The results of this study showed that this assemblage consists of two separate (evolutionarily distinct) lineages, thus suggesting a more complex history of diversification than previously thought.  The paper also describes a new species in this group from the Clearwater and lower Salmon Rivers (Idaho) which merits conservation attention owing to the various threats to these water bodies.

Full reference: Hershler, Robert and Liu, Hsiu-Ping. 2012. Molecular phylogeny of the western North American pebblesnails, genus Fluminicola (Rissooidea: Lithoglyphidae), with description of a new species.Journal of Molluscan Studies, 78(4): 321-329. doi:10.1093/mollus/eys017

by Robert Hershler

Go Break a Leg: The Joy of Scientific Presentations

In December, at the 13^th International Deep-sea Biology Symposium in New Zealand, I gave an introductory talk on the history of deep-sea exploration in New Zealand.  One of the great exploratory cruises in the region was done by the Danish ship “Galathea” in 1952.

On board the Galathea was the renowned Danish deep-sea scientist, Torben Wolff.  Somewhere in New Zealand, Torben saw some native Polynesians (Maoris) performing a traditional “war dance” known as a haka.  He was entranced by this, learned some of the moves, and at subsequent deep-sea meetings, during the banquet, he would climb up on a table and give his version of  a haka.

 

Dr. Torben Wolff, Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen, member of scientific complement of Galathea , performs a Māori war dance, calculated to strike fear in the vinous hearts of Deep-Sea Biology Symposium banquet-goers. Brest, France, 1988.

At the 1988 meeting in Brittany, France, Torben gave a grand performance, and I took a couple of snapshots, which I showed at the December Deep-Sea meeting (shown here).

 

After the banquet I told Torben how much I enjoyed his haka.  He said “well, it was OK but it was better at the last meeting”. I asked him why, and he replied “because I fell off the table and broke my leg!”.

by Dave Pawson

The "Rasta" Coral Gets a Scientific Name

In December of 2012 I published a NIWA Biodiversity memoir, the first of a proposed multi-part series on the deep-water octocorals of New Zealand.

In this part I describe 13 new species and three new genera.  The New Zealanders had a common name for one of the species, the one figured on the cover slightly off center, which they called the “rasta coral”.  They had to explain to me that the branching of the coral reminded them of a rastafarian hair style, similar to that of Bob Marley.  They had to further explain to me about Bob Marley and played some of his music.  They almost insisted that I call this new species Narella marleyi, but I resisted, and ultimately called it Narella hypsocalyx.

                I am part of a group called the NZ-US Joint Commission on Research, Science, and Technology, which has required me to visit Wellington three times now to meet with administrators, politicians and scientists in an effort to foster cooperation on the study of New Zealand corals.  In that regard I have presented identification workshops and progress reports on the status of knowledge of deep corals in New Zealand.  We are currently charged with finding graduate students that we can support through an exchange program between the two countries, as well as obtaining commitments from senor scientists to study and publish on the large unexamined collections at NIWA, and to present additional identification workshops.

Full Reference: Cairns, S.D. 2012. New Zealand Primnoidae (Anthozoa: Alcyonacea). Part 1. Genera Narella, Narelloides, Metanarella, Calyptrophora, and Helicoprimnoa. NIWA Biodiversity Memoirs. 126:1-100.

by Stephen D. Cairns