The post The Sports Cars of Worms first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Marine scientists, we have made a mistake. Eunice aphroditois, is a fearsome aquatic polychaete. Unfortunately, we chose to name it after a domestic abuser. And that needs to be changed.

How did this happen you might ask? In the early 90’s the media was awash with the story of Lorena Bobbitt, the woman who cut off her husband’s penis. She was portrayed as that crazy wife and he as the poor, dismembered husband. I remember it being joked about on SNL. Regrettably, I probably laughed along with it.

Around the same time, scientists discovered Eunice aphroditois. It is a worm that buries itself in the sand waiting for prey, often cutting the victim in half with a fearsome jaw when it strikes. Of course it seemed clever to name it the “Bobbitt Worm”.

But the reality of Lorena Bobbitt’s infamous night was not as it was portrayed in the news (as detailed in an upcoming upcoming Amazon Docuseries and this NY Times article). After years of sexual abuse at the hands of her husband, and after being raped yet again one night, Lorena Bobbitt had enough and cut off her husband’s penis.

Since then, Lorena’s ex-husband, has been in jail for repeatedly assaulting and raping two other women and has otherwise gone on to live a comfortable life profiting from the experience.

Since then, Lorena Gallo, has started a non-profit, Lorena’s Red Wagon, that helps survivors of domestic violence. She is a strong survivor that has turned a terrible night into good.

Let’s do the same. Bobbitt is the last name of a rapist and domestic abuser that should not be immortalized anywhere, not the least being scientific literature. Have we been guilty of that here at DSN? Yes. Can we change the future? Yes. By the time this article is to be published, I will have gone through all posts with the words “Bobbitt Worm” and replace name with Sand Striker, and linking back to this article. I encourage others to do the same.

Because that name needs to be buried in the sand like Eunice aphroditois last snack.

Want to do more? You can donate to an organization that works to end domestic violence and support survivors. Find your local list here at https://nnedv.org/content/state-u-s-territory-coalitions/

The post This marine worm is called the Sand Striker first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Because my other post today is just a wee bit ranty, here a tranquil set of awe-inspiring videos for your consumption.  The ribbon eel is the only species in its genus, meanings it is pretty unique, in the larger family of Moray eels.  The ribbon eel, Rhinomuraena quaesita, is found among the lagoons and reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific oceans.  If you note the snout on these critters, you will see the flared nostrils.  This is usually the only part sticking out from burrows.  Apparently, the ribbon ells use these to attract small prey, clamping down on the unsuspecting food with their strong jaws and retreating into their burrows.  In addittion, all ribbon eels begin life as males and then ultimately become females.  This is called sequential hermaphroditism.

The post Ribbon Eel Video Roundup first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The sunflower star, Pycnopodia heliantoides.

I thought these big multi-armed beasts were pretty neat, but, then I watched one engulf a softball-sized red urchin (and that’s softball before the big spiky spines), and a day or so later, spit out all of the hard parts. Not sated, it then ate all of the purple urchin in the tank. Basically, it was a remorseless eating machine.

Couple this with a few old-marine-biologist’s tales of giant man-sized Pycnos and tales of their wandering off into the deep, with no ability to track them, and you can see why it took me a bit to conquer my fear of them for my usual profile picture.

Now, shows me that, um, I might have been right.

Sure, we know that they can hoover up reefs of tiny sea cucumbers, or affect smaller purple urchin barrens, but Burt et al. show that Pycnos have an impact that is even stronger than otters! Even cooler, they discovered this due to two simultaneous natural experiments – otters moving back into a historic part of their range (which they’d been hunted out of, so, natural?) combined with sea star wasting disease wiping out Pycnos a few years after. I’ll let their video explain even better.

For me, this work was deeply personal. My own early work tried to think about how a post-otter California was able to avoid the devestating consequences of their loss seen in the Aleutians. I always viewed Pycnos and the other predators as mere redundant species, with many of those predators being necessary to equal the raw force of otters. Burt et al. are really breaking the paradigm here, showing that while otters are absolutely key, that diversity still matters. Because the real urchin horf-master of the deep is Pycnopodia. All hail!

Also, as an added reward from the dive team, everybody dance now!

References

Burt, J.M., Tinker, M.T., Okamoto, D.K., Demes, K.W., Holmes, K., Salomon, A.K., 2018. Sudden collapse of a mesopredator reveals its complementary role in mediating rocky reef regime shifts. P Roy Soc Lond B Bio. 285, 20180553. doi:10.1098/rspb.2018.0553

Byrnes, J., Stachowicz, J.J., Hultgren, K.M., Randall Hughes, A., Olyarnik, S.V., Thornber, C.S., 2006. Predator diversity strengthens trophic cascades in kelp forests by modifying herbivore behaviour. Ecol. Lett. 9, 61–71. doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00842.x (aw, my first dissertation chapter! wudda!)

The post Sunflower Stars: Rulers of the Reef first appeared on Deep Sea News.

For more updates on my research, follow along at jellybiologist.com, or on twitter @RebeccaRHelm

As a scientist, I love jellyfish, and I suffer for it. Up until a few years ago, I had no way of knowing exactly where or when the jellyfish I study would appear. So I traveled to Washington and France and Florida looking for them, and more often than not, came up empty handed. The most frustrating part of all this travel was that I had all the species I needed right at home, but couldn’t use them. That’s because jellyfish, like butterflies, are the last stage in a complicated life cycle. Jellyfish have a stage that’s analogous to a caterpillar, termed a ‘polyp’, which lives happily in the lab. So imagine studying butterflies, and having all the caterpillar you need, expect none of them will metamorphose. No matter how hard you try to convince them, they just sit there eating leaves, and so you travel all around the world to find and study the actual butterflies. That is the exact position researchers and aquarists have been in with jellyfish.

This is why I’m so excited to share with you a paper I just published in PLOS ONE on a simple method for triggering metamorphosis in a huge variety of jellyfish species. Now, rather than traveling halfway around the globe, scientists can add a couple drops of a special compound to their polyp tank, and have jellyfish to study in under a week! I hope this work will be helpful to many different kinds of jelly-lovers, form biologists to aquarists and beyond.

This research started out of frustration. I’d been traveling for over two years looking for the best species to study, and was consistently coming up short. I wanted to better understand the process of metamorphosis, called ‘strobilation’, but I needed to find a species that would easily strobilate in captivity. No luck. And so one day, rather than going out to look for jellies,  I decided it was time to spend a couple months indoors, to test out a hair-brained idea that was all together different.

Throughout the decades, a handful of scientist have recorded that this-or-that chemical, when added to water with this-or-that polyps species, will trigger strobilation. Most of these papers stretch back to the 70’s and earlier, and most have been largely forgotten. But I decided it was time to revisit those old studies, and test out different chemicals. The experiments were messy and quirky–I had a bunch of chemicals, jars, and polyps all soaking in different substances for different lengths of time–but I remember the exact moment when I got my first breakthrough.

I carried a small dish of polyps, which had been soaking in a type of chemical called an ‘indole’, to the microscope. I was working alone in the lab, and I was feeling pretty discouraged. It’d been two weeks of stirring up different chemical solutions, doling them out in precise proportions, and checking every single day for signs that the little polyps had begun metamorphosis. Nothing. But when I looked down at the polyps soaking in indoles…well, I think my lab notebook can express it better than I can (there was, um…some language):

Each polyp had formed a small ring below the tentacles. This ring was the first sign of metamorphosis. Each ring would eventually grow to be a tiny jellyfish (the pictures at the top of this post are the same animals I saw that day!) This species is the Pacific sea nettle, but the same compound also worked for species from the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Almost every species I tried would dutifully metamorphose into a tiny jellyfish.

Not only did this open up a whole new research avenue for me, it has become the foundation for my career. Now we can have tiny jellyfish of almost any species in under a week. Even box jellies!

But here’s a result that’s got me head scratching: one type of polyp, from a crown jellyfish, didn’t strobilate with the indoles. I tried all sorts of different combinations of conditions, nothing worked. But there are a couple really cool things about crown jellies that may explain why they didn’t respond. First, the polyp lives in a small tube, unlike any other species. So it’s possible the compound didn’t work because the polyp is mostly tucked away behind a barrier. But the second cool thing about this species is that it’s a very distant cousin of most of the species that I studied. So it is possible that over evolutionary time it evolved a slightly different biochemistry, which makes it insensitive to indoles. Similar to the way catnip gets cats high, but doesn’t have the same impact on people. Indoles works well on many related species of jellies, but not so well on a distant relative.

I’m now working on figuring out the reason why indoles works so well for some species. What genes might this compound help turn on and off? By studying metamorphosis in jellyfish, I hope to better understand how metamorphosis evolved over long time scales. For example, are there genetic similarities of metamorphosis between frogs, butterflies, and jellies?

Those results are still pending. For now, I’m enjoying all the new jellies we have growing in the lab. And I hope these results can be helpful to all those seeking to learn more about jellyfish in this coming new year!

Paper:

Rebecca R. Helm & Casey W. Dunn (2017). Indoles induce metamorphosis in a broad diversity of jellyfish, but not in a crown jelly (Coronatae). PLOS ONE 12(12): e0188601. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0188601

The post New Research Reveals How to Easily Grow Jellyfish In Captivity first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Just in time for the low winter tides, the brilliant minds of the Martone Lab out of University of British Columbia have come to the rescue (just in case you needed one more reason to love Canadia). With over 100 different species represented from the North Western Seaboard of North America, the Seaweed Sorter app is here to blow some minds.

“Unlike printed dichotomous keys, which use jargon and often require specialized knowledge, Seaweed Sorter uses easy-to-understand, illustrated questions that assume no prior knowledge and allows users to skip questions at any time.

Seaweed Sorter includes more than 250 photos, current and former names, taxonomic details, clear morphological and ecological descriptions, and lists of other seaweeds that “could be confused with” your specimen… Books can be quickly out-of-date, but Seaweed Sorter content will be updated frequently with taxonomic revisions, additional photos, new species, and more. Plus, content is available anytime and doesn’t require an internet connection, making Seaweed Sorter an excellent companion on any trip to the coast.”

Just remember….waterproof phone sold separately. You have been warned.

The post Seaweed Sorting? There’s Now an App for That! first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I love kelp. I love art. It’s safe to say that ‘kelp art’ brings me to a whole new level of excitement that some could consider “overwhelming” in normal human interactions. I’m okay with it- people need to get on my level.

I first came across artist Bryan Helfand’s kelp art a few years back now and I have since been a huge fan. Normally, I reserve this bit for artists whose work communicates science in some interesting way- Bryan is the exception here- but I have found myself enthralled with the way he portrays the ocean and more specifically everyone’s favorite primary producer. Helfand is a local San Diego artist who specializes in mixed media paintings, wood carvings, and murals and whose muse stems from his passion for and experience with the sea. I often find myself perusing his Facebook page for his next beautiful masterpiece- the man is a wizard with a jigsaw.

I love how he captures the unique ebb and flow of Macrocystis – not true to form per se – but beautiful and vibrant none the less. Enjoy a few of his imaginings here and then go take a look at his website for some inspiration. The ocean needs more excellent artists like Bryan to speak for it and show the world how beautiful it truly is.

The post The Writings on the Sea-Wall: Ocean Art by Bryan Helfand first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The shell-less gastropods of the sea are collectively known as “sea slugs”. A well-known subgroup of these mollusks, the nudibranchs, are among the most colorful and captivating creatures in the ocean. Nudibranch (noo-də-bránk) means ‘naked-gill’, referring to their external filamentous respiratory organs; one of the physical characters that distinguishes them from other sea slugs. “Nudis”, as they are affectionately called, are also a quite successful clan. Over 2000 are species are known to inhabit marine environments around the planet, from the extreme depths of the seafloor to the littoral pools of the intertidal zone.

The waters of Cabrillo National Monument host at least 25 different species of these soft bodied jewels, a few of which may be observed during a good low tide. With the right timing and a keen eye, one can pick out the small but unmistakable Hopkins’ rose nudibranch (Okenia rosacea). They are one of the more common nudibranchs found here and perhaps the least inconspicuous of all the tidepool organisms at the park. Though small–only 2-3 centimeters long–it’s hard to miss their bright pink, frilly papillae swaying in the water.

The rose nudibranch was first described in 1905 by Frank Mace McFarland, a marine biologist from Stanford University and one of the founders of Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California. McFarland, well known for his contributions to malacology (the study of mollusks), originally named the rosey-colored slug ‘Hopkinsia rosacea’ after his friend and patron of the marine lab, Timothy Hopkins.

Rose nudibranchs are carnivorous. They utilize their sensory organs, known as rhinophores, to locate their sole food source: the pink encrusting bryozoan, Integripelta bilabiata. They then extract the bryozoan’s soft tissue with specialized teeth. Like many nudibranchs, Okenia rosacea steals the toxins and calcareous spicules of their prey and place them into their feathery appendages for protection. In addition to nourishment and protective compounds, these nudibranchs garner their stunning color from their bryozoan food. The tissues of the bryozoans contain hopkinsiaxanthin, the compound responsible for the slug’’s intense pink hue; and a carotenoid that was unknown to science before its discovery in the tissues of these species.

Historically, the range of these nudis extends from Northern Baja California, Mexico up to the lower Oregon coast. But, until recently, they were rarely noted north of San Francisco. Over the last few years, however, Hopkins’ rose have been seen in surprisingly high numbers in parts of Northern California and have even been observed spawning in the coastal waters of Southern Oregon, a locality in their range that was previously only known from only one specimen. Researchers believe this shift may be due to a warm water anomaly occurring in the North Pacific in 2014 and find it indicative of warming climatic conditions in general.

Like other nudibranchs, Okenia rosacea is a simultaneous hermaphrodite. Equipped with both male and female reproductive organs, this species can mate with any other mature individual of the same species. The mated slugs will deposit their pink, ribbon-like spiral egg masses on rocks and other tide pool substrates. In the act of spawning, they deposit eggs from the outside working inward in a counterclockwise motion, thus creating a clockwise spiral. From the eggs hatch tiny planktonic larvae, which develop and eventually settle on the substrate to grow to adulthood.

The more you look into it, the more there is to learn about these bright, beautiful, and fascinating mollusks. The same can be said of just about any species. Our National Parks hold multitudes of life forms, each with myriad complexities and adaptations to discover.

The next time you are exploring the rocky intertidal of the California (or Oregon!) coast, keep an eye out for the truly splendid Hopkins’ rose.

Sources and Reference:

Bertsch H. “Life history of the intertidal Californian nudibranch Hopkinsia rosacea MacFarland, 1905”. Western Society of Malacologists, Annual Report, 1989 21:19-20.

Emerson, W. K., Morris, Robert H., Donald P. Abbott, and Eugene C. Haderlie. “Intertidal invertebrates of California” Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 1980 98,326

Goddard, Jeffrey H. R. Treneman, N., et.al , “Nudibranch Range Shifts Associated with the 2014 Warm Anomaly in the Northeast Pacific”, Bulletin, Southern California Academy of Sciences 115(1). 2016 :15-40

Strain H. H. “Hopkinsiaxanthin, a xanthophyll of the sea slug Hopkinsia rosacea”. Biological Bulletin97(1) 1949 :206-209.

The post That Which is Bright and Splendid first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The post The Fantastical Beasts of the Deep Gulf of Mexico first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Science has the unenviable task of keeping track of all the life on this planet in a methodical and organized way. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus first introduced our current binomial naming scheme in his defining work, Species
Plantarum in 1753. Since that time, scientists have been coming up with some very original and not-so-original names for newly discovered creatures in all corners of the earth. Marine biologists have a particularly imaginative track record when it comes to naming. Experts have touted their tautonyms, noted their knightly naming virtues, and wondered at the many magical monikers for marine molluscs. Here, we will explore a few of the more extraordinary scientific names for marine species and take a look at how those names were first assigned and why, for the love of Poseidon, they seem to change with such protean constancy.

Let us start with the most recently named organism, Synalpheus pinkfloydi, more commonly known as the Pink Floyd pistol shrimp and perhaps the loudest of all ocean-dwelling creatures. When this shrimp snaps its claws together, it can reach up to 210 decibels, loud enough to kill a passing fish. The name comes not from the rock band’s volume, however, but instead from the color of the shrimp’s claw, pink. The shrimp was named just this year by Dr. Sammy De Grave, Pink Floyd fan and head of research at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Another interesting name from the deep draws inspiration from the nocturnal darkness from which it emerges to capture prey. The vampire squid, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, is a deep-sea dweller whose name literally means “vampire squid from hell” and is the only living member of the cephalopod taxa, Vampymorpha. William Beebe described this squid as “a very small, but terrible octopus, black as night with ivory white jaws and blood red eyes”. Supporting Beebe’s conclusions is further evidence of vampiric relation: These squid can morph their size, shape, and fin position, can dart to and fro with great agility, and have the lowest metabolic rate of any cephalopod species.

Abra cadabra, a bivalve mollusk, is one of many marine taxa whose scientific name has mysteriously morphed through time. British Petroleum biologists F.E. Eames and G.D. Wilkins first discovered the saltwater clam in 1957 and identified the species as one belonging to a long-dead fossil, so long-dead in fact that it could be described as cadaverous. Hence the species name cadabra. The genus was later changed in 1995 to Theora and again in 2008 once scientists discovered that the clam was actually a junior synonym of the clam Corbula mesopotamica. Ultimately, a combination of both names was used to describe the species, which is how the current name, Theora mesopotamica magically appeared.

Mola mola, a fish so nice they named it twice. The Mola mola is the heaviest boned fish caught on record weighing up to 5,000 lbs. Native to temperate and tropical waters, these sunfish primarily eat jellyfish and a lot of them. The name mola comes from the Latin word for millstone (used for grinding grain) due to the animal’s close resemblance in texture, color, and size. The mola species was originally classified under the pufferfish genus Tetraodon, but now belongs to its own genus of which there are two species, Mola mola and Mola ramsayi. The Mola mola is what is known as a type species, the species for which the genus is named and a permanent fixture in the genus sharing its name.

Equetus lanceolatus would undoubtedly have inhabited Camelot’s moat had only it not  been located in the Bahamas. This jackknife fish was named according to its definitive fin shape, which resembles either a lancer on horseback or an opened jack knife. We have Linnaeus to thank for this name that dates all the way back to 1758. The jackknife fish is small, 6-9 inches in length, black and white in coloration, and primarily eats crabs, shrimp, and other small invertebrates. As noted, these fish are typically found in reef areas of the Western Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Florida and Bahamas and is a common contributor to many marine aquaria.

Finally, a parting note for all you young biologists and taxonomists out there whose admirable goal in life is to discover a new species, be it on this planet or another. If popular culture does not hold your attention and you just cannot conjure a perfect name that captures the true essence of the organism, you can always stick with what you know. That is, your own name. This method is tried and true and has been used by countless biologists. For example, here is a list of all the marine taxa named by or for the renowned marine biologist and beloved author Ed Ricketts:

Aclesia rickettsi (Sea slug); Catriona rickettsi (Sea slug); Hypsoblenniops rickettsi (Blenny); Longiprostatum rickettsi (Flatworm); Mysidium rickettsi (Opossum shrimp); Siphonides rickettsi (Peanut worm); Nephtys rickettsi (Polychaete worm); Mesochaetopterus rickettsi (Polychaete worm); Polydoa rickettsi (Polychaete worm) Panoploea rickettsi (Sand flea); Pentactinia rickettsi (Sea anemone); Palythoa rickettsi (Zoanthid); Isometridium rickettsi (Sea anemone); Pycnogonum rickettsi (Sea spider); Asbestopluma rickettsi (Sea sponge); Poecillastra rickettsi (Sea sponge); Tellina (Acorylus) rickettsi (Clam)

The post What’s in a name? That which we call a Hopkin’s Rose by any other name would smell as sweet. first appeared on Deep Sea News.