A recent photo of Kristian
Kristian Fauchald [July 1, 1935 – April 4, 2015] was a research zoologist studying polychaete worms in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology from 1979 until his death. Just prior to coming to the Smithsonian Kristian was on the faculty at the University of Southern California.
His earliest studies in marine biology were conducted in the cold waters of Norway, especially at the University of Bergen, and the Espegrend Marine Biological Station. After receiving the equivalent of a Masters degree from the University of Bergen (Cand. Real 1959) on the Nephtyidae polychaetes of Norwegian waters, he was hired as a staff member at the Espegrend Marine Biological Station, ending as Assistant Director in 1964. During his time at Espegrend he received a grant from the Norwegian Research Council enabling him to go in the fall of 1963 to the University of Southern California’s Allan Hancock Foundation to continue his studies of the Nephtyidae. He returned to his job at Espegrend but felt if he wanted to expand his polychaete research he needed to pursue a Ph.D.. He chose the University of Southern California to work with Dr. Olga Hartman who was in charge of the polychaete collection at the Allan Hancock Foundation. Upon graduation he was hired as a USC faculty member and researcher at the Allan Hancock Foundation. He taught summer courses at the marine labs at Catalina Island, California and Friday Harbor, Washington. He participated in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography 1972 South Tow Expedition, which collected samples from abyssal depths from San Diego to Papeete, Tahiti by way of Pitcairn Island.
Kristian was frequently invited to teach 1-2 week long classes at universities and marine stations throughout the world, including in Italy, Brazil, Taiwan and Mexico. Topics covered included: cladistics, phylogenetics, morphology, and ecology of polychaetes.
The Pink Book
Kristian’s 1977 book Polychaete Worms: Definitions and Keys to the Orders, Families and Genera, published by the Natural History Museum and the Allan Hancock Foundation, University of Southern California, also known as “The Pink Book”, was the introductory book that taught many of us how to identify polychaete worms. Kristian was always quick to point out that he had no say in the choice of color (pink) for the cover of the book. Many a copy has been taken into the field around the world helping identify polychaetes and the hard copy is still available for purchase from the Los Angeles County Museum. The 2001 book Polychaetes by Gregory Rouse and Fredrick Pleijel takes the “Pink Book’ into the new era of polychaete systematics. One of the most frequently cited papers on polychaetes (nearly 2000 times) is the 1979 paper Kristian wrote with Peter Jumars: The diet of worms: a study of polychaete feeding guilds.
After moving to the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History in 1979 Kristian spent time conducting research at the Smithsonian’s labs at Ft. Pierce, Florida and Carrie Bow Cay, Belize. He also went to more exotic locals to study polychaetes such as Aldabra, Republic of the Seychelles (1983, 1985, 1987); Madang, Papua New Guinea (1993); Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (1983) and even Cuba (1994). As he said in an August 11, 1999 article in the Washington Post (As the Worm Turns, So Does a Museum) “I am not fond of cold water. I did my duty in it when I was in Europe. I do not see why I shouldn’t study interesting problems in warm waters.” One of his last trips was back to the cold waters of the north, this time to the Nikolai Pertsov White Sea Biological Station, Russia where he was invited to teach a class on polychaete cladistics.
The worm collection in its former location at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
The polychaete collection at the Smithsonian is among the world’s largest in terms of physical size, shown above in a picture of the worm collections former location in the Natural History building. It also has extensive taxonomic, geographic and temporal coverage. Kristian felt it was important to examine the type specimens, where available, of the species he was studying whether it be taken from the Smithsonian collection, or outside museums. He spent several months in 1983 at the Australian Museum studying their collection of Eunicidae. He was able to look at not only their types but specimens from all over the Indo-Pacific region. In his review of the genus Eunice he scored 82 characters for 208 species: including characters such as total length, number of segments, position of the eyes. Imagine examining a worm that was almost 1 meter long and having to count and characterize more than 500 segments! Where type specimens were no longer available he tried to use the original description to score the morphological characters but often the descriptions were so brief or vague that he could not.
Despite the breadth of our collections Kristian went into the field to collect additional specimens. In living specimens you can see the true color and color patterns, such as seen in the three eunicids (above, to the left, and below) photographed by his former PH.D. student Joana Zanol. The worms quickly lose any color, often turning beige or muddy brown, once preserved in formalin and stored in alcohol. During preservation the worms often contract parts of their body which can change their appearance, or even obscure parts making identification difficult. With live animals Kristian could study the the appendages on the head (such as antennae and palps) as well as the parapodia and chaetae (the lobes and hairs that project from each segment and help the worm move).
Several of the Ph.D. and Post-Doctoral students (Joana Zanol, Greg Rouse and Fredrik Pleijel) who worked with Kristian in the field over the years, especially at Carrie Bow Cay, excel in using digital cameras to capture images of living specimens. They also have the patience to capture entire specimens and to preserve them with the least distortion possible. Search Polychaeta or polychaetes on the Internet and you will find images and videos of a wide variety of polychaete worms.
Polychaetologists around the world have been influenced by his teaching and his publications but Kristian learned just as much from them. He loved discussing polychaetes, philosophy and history whether in a formal class, during a break in a conference (shown below), or over dinner at his home. When Greg Rouse was a Post-Doc at the Smithsonian he and Kristian had many discussions between themselves as well as with Fredrik Pleijel, Damhnait McHugh and Alexander Tzetlin that ultimately led to a series of papers in 1995 and 1997 that changed how people thought of polychaete systematics. [Rouse & Fauchald 1995. The Articulation of the Annelids. Fauchald & Rouse 1997. Polychaete Systematics: Past and Present. Rouse & Fauchald 1997. Cladistics and Polychaetes.]
Kristian and Leslie Harris at the 6th International Polychaete Conference
List of the Ph.D, Post-Docs and Pre-Docs of Kristian Fauchald and where they are working now.
Former Ph.D. Students
Ray Emerson-retired from teaching
Fred Piltz-retired from the U.S. Department of Interior
John Pilger-teaching at Agnes Scott College
Kirk Fitzhugh- Curator of Polychaetes, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
Dave Russell – scientist at Environmental Protection Agency
Hua Lu
Joana Zanol-teaching at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Polo Xerém
Former Pre-Docs
Damhnait McHugh-teaching at Colgate University
Natalyia Budaeva-Post-doc at University of Bergen, Norway
Former Post-Docs
Peter Jumars-soon to retire from teaching at University of Maine, Orono and the Darling Marine Center
Chris Glasby - Curator of Annelids, Natural Sciences, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Australia
Greg Rouse-teaching at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California San Diego
Anja Schulze- teaching at Texas A&M University at Galveston
Mark Grygier- scientist at Lake Biwa Museum, Japan
To learn more about Kristian here are links to various tributes and memorials for Kristian:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/249432683_Kristian_Fauchald_A_Tribute
http://www.e-torch.org/2015/04/in-memoriam-12/
An obituary published in the Washington Blade
http://www.marinespecies.org/news.php?p=show&id=4152
https://twitter.com/wpolydb/status/584574524395401216
http://wwx.inhs.illinois.edu/files/6014/3044/6882/FauchaldMemoriam.pdf
Links to various interviews of Kristian and articles about polychaetes and Kristian:
Kristian showing off one of our largest polychaetes
One of the largest polychaetes in our collection is the eunicid, Eunice aphroditois (Pallas, 1788). Shown in this picture from the Washington Post December 10, 2006 Sunday Magazine article on unusual jobs. http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1999/08/11/as-the-worm-turns-so-does-a-museum-job/a5169008-237b-48fc-80b0-85ba9eb77858/
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/05/142678239/the-deep-sea-find-that-changed-biology
There are a number of websites that have videos and photographs showing Eunice aphroditois in action:
https://vimeo.com/28280553
http://www.uwphotographyguide.com/bobbit-worm
http://www.wired.com/2013/09/absurd-creature-of-the-week-bobbit-worm/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=refnOdW49rw
Polychaetes have even made the list of the 5 most Nightmarish Worms on the Planet
Kristian and Carrie Bow
As mentioned before one of the places where Kristian went frequently to collect and examine polychaetes was the Carrie Bow Cay Smithsonian Marine Station as part of the Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program. Kristian collected many polychaetes at Carrie Bow and Twin Cays as well as many of the other nearby cays.

The Carrie Bow station has a remarkable history and this is the “Big House”, which burned down in 1997. Many of the samples collected over the years have a collecting location of “off the Big House”, a location that would mean nothing to researchers collecting on the cay today. Thanks to modern technology, such as GPS, one can pinpoint precise collecting sites today and avoid using land marks that may disappear.

Kristian and Brian Kensley are shown above using the sun to illuminate their microscopes so they could sort their samples. One took advantage of the sun light to sort in order to avoid having to listen to the gas driven generator. Today thanks to solar power one can have electricity in the lab without the noise.

Lu Hua, at the time a Ph.D. student of Kristian’s, examining live eunicid polychaetes in the old lab at Carrie Bow, Sept. 1997, 3 months before the lab burned down.
by Linda Ward