But true nerd credit was earned by the pair for the names that were given to these new species blending their love of nerd culture and taxonomy.

So first up is hat tip to Game of Thrones.

This genus is dedicated to Arya Stark, one of P.B.’s favourite characters in the novel ‘A song of ice and fire’ by George R. R. Martin. The name is composed by ‘abyss’ from the Latin word ‘ăbyssus’ meaning ‘bottomless’ and Arya….The species name came from Latin ‘ăcŭs’ meaning ‘needle’. It refers to modified neurochaetae present on segment 2 similar to a ‘crochet needle’.

And perhaps this little nod to White Walkers

The species name glacigena means ‘ice-born’, which is composed by borrowing from the Latin word ‘glăcĭēs’ meaning ‘ice’ and the Greek word ‘gennó, γεννώ’ meaning ‘born’. It refers to white ganglia like ice.

And where there are the ice borns there are the fire borns! Surely these are clans in a fantasy fiction somewhere?

Species named from the ‘ignĭgĕna’, a poetical epithet of Bacchus meaning ‘fire-born’, which is composed by borrowing from the Latin word ‘ignis’ meaning ‘fire’ and the Greek word ‘gennó, γεννώ’ meaning ‘born’.

And my only comment about this is YASSSSS!

This genus [and species are] dedicated to Hodor, one of P.B.’s favourite characters in the novel ‘A song of ice and fire’ by George R. R. Martin.

And in a moment of cross exchange sure to rial up nerds everywhere is Hodor anduril

The species name is derived from the sword named ‘andúril’ meaning ‘Flame of the West’ and belonging to Aragorn in the novel ‘The lord of the rings’ by J. R. R. Tolkien. It refers to the sword-like modified neurochaetae present in this species.

And let’s not leave out the hipster worm

The species name came from the French word ‘moustachu’ meaning ‘with a moustache’. It refers to the palps directed ventrally, giving the impression that the worm has a moustache.

Now to strut that mythology knowledge.

In the ancient Egyptian religion, ‘Nu’ refers to the deification of the primordial watery abyss whence all life came, also known as ‘the Father of the Gods’ and ‘the Eldest’….Again, in the ancient Egyptian religion, ‘áakhu’ is one of the elements that compose the human soul. An ‘áakhu’ is the glorified spirit or a blessed soul which has passed the final judgement (the Weighing of the Heart). The term refers to the translucent character of the body of this worm.

However, the best name is this loving tribute.

This species is dedicated to Maria Silva, mother of P.B., for her love.

Paulo Bonifácio, Lénaïck Menot; New genera and species from the Equatorial Pacific provide phylogenetic insights into deep-sea Polynoidae (Annelida), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, , zly063, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zly063

The post A Wormy (and Nerdy) Conquest of the Deep first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Another year of science closes, giving us pause to review those new species of sharks described in the scientific literature, bringing the total number of known shark species to 512. Perhaps it’s a hollow victory to have so many different species known at a time when sharks populations worldwide are either in decline or in a complete population tailspin. But as taxonomists continue to kick ass and give names, our knowledge of shark evolution, biogeography, and ecology continue to get richer. Meet the new sharks of 2015:

Ginglymostoma unami, the Pacific Nurse Shark
This isn’t really the brand-spankin’ new species you might think, but it has been known for well over a century. The Nurse Shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) had a disjunct distribution between the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico and the eastern central Pacific oceans, meaning their range was divided into two separate populations. Like some nooks in the Ozarks, land barriers prevented gene flow, so the populations were both physically and genetically separated by a small spit of land called Central America. This team didn’t use genetic methods to test if the populations were distinct enough to be considered different species, but relied on a meristics, the process of compiling detailed measurements of the shark’s anatomy and comparing these values between the populations.  However, a 2012 paper on populations genetics of G. cirratum showed that the Pacific population was genetically quite unique, and divergent from any of the Atlantic populations. Since these two nurse shark populations had been separated by three million years, a few things can happen, like speciation. Indeed, their analysis showed that these two species are morphologically different enough to warrant giving the Pacific population its own scientific name. This name, G. unami, is an acronym of their alma mater, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Moral-Flores, L.F.D., E. Ramirez-Antonio, A. Angulo, and G. Perez-Ponce de Leon. 2015. Ginglymostoma unami sp. nov. (Chondrichthyes: Orectolobiformes: Ginglymostomatidae): una especie nueva de tiburón gata del Pacífico oriental tropical. Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad 86 (2015) 48-58.

Scyliorhinus ugoi, Dark Speckled Catshark
Way down among Brazilians sharks once swam there in the millions, but overfishing took surely took a hefty toll, yet there are still new shark species to be found. Case in point: a new catshark that had long been swimming along most of the Brazilian coast but had been confused as other known species. Catsharks are a widespread, diverse, and somewhat confusing group of sharks. Differences in color, morphological changes between juveniles & adults, and sexual differences between males & females create difficulties in sorting out just how many species there are. Here, the authors use detailed meristic analysis to extract out a species that had been there all along, but the morphological features that delineate the species had not yet been defined.

SOARES, K.D.A. & GADIG, O.F.B. & GOMES, U.L. 2015. Scyliorhinus ugoi, a new species of catshark from Brazil (Chondrichthyes: Carcharhiniformes: Scyliorhinidae). Zootaxa, 3937 (2): 347-361.

Atelomycterus erdmanni, Spotted-belly Catshark

This sexy beast is one of the more colorful species of catsharks, and is one of several new species discovered from a larger taxonomic mess called the coral catsharks.  Using meristics, genetics, and biogeographical analyses, it turns out that the “coral catshark” represents several species, with this species as the newest. They don’t live in coral, so much as they crawl on and among coral reefs of Indonesia, using their pectoral and pelvic fins like tiny feet and walking like a more limber and agile salamander. Named after Mark Erdmann, a fish taxonomist who collected most of the known specimens, and was rewarded with this li’l shark bearing his name.

Fahmi & White, W.T.  2015. Atelomycterus erdmanni, a new species of catshark (Scyliorhinidae: Carcharhiniformes) from Indonesia. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation 14: 14-27.

Bythaelurus tenuicephalus, Narrow-head Catshark
2015 also brought us two more catsharks, from the same genus, and both from the depths of the southwestern Indian Ocean. Hailing from the outer continental shelf of Mozambique and Tanzania comes the Narrow-headed catshark. The vast majority of sharks in recent years have been from the more remote pockets of Earth’s oceans, and in particular, from the deep oceans that have barely been explored. This species of Bythaelurus is a “dwarf”, a species that is sexually mature at a much smaller size than most other species in its genus.  The advantage of dwarfism might allow this species to breed at a younger age, thus increasing their overall lifetime reproductive output. Or it could be that being smaller simply means eating smaller prey that larger species of catsharks might miss. This sort of niche-partitioning may explain why there are so many different species of catsharks. The species name tenuicephalus means “narrow head”, a little less imaginative than some names, but descriptive nonetheless.

KASCHNER, C.J. & WEIGMANN, S. & THIEL, R. 2015. Bythaelurus tenuicephalus n. sp., a new deep-water catshark (Carcharhiniformes, Scyliorhinidae) from the western Indian Ocean. Zootaxa, 4013 (1): 120–138.

Bythaelurus naylori, Dusky Snout Catshark
Another year, another catshark on the list.  This species however, has quite an interesting story behind its capture.  Massive trawlers, towing huge nets and pulling up tons of fish aren’t new, but what is new is the trend for these huge vessels to move from depleted fishing grounds in the shallows, and into the relatively untapped fishery resources of the deep sea. In addition to the targeted commercial species that will earn them great sums of money when they return to port, these nets also catch and kill tons of other non-marketable species.  This is what ecologists call ‘by-catch’, but there is a sunny side to such needless destruction.  Commercial vessels are often the first to explore deep-sea zones, well ahead of research cruises that are difficult to fund and even more impossible to sustain over time. If you can get onto one of these factory trawlers, the bounty of the bycatch is yours, and what a paradise this is to shark researchers. Dave Ebert & Paul Clerkin of the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Lab got the invite to board one of these vessels as it sailed south from Mauritius, but with a small catch: they had to stay for the entire three month trawling season. If you haven’t ever had the displeasure of sailing the wild waves and howling winds where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean, then you wouldn’t know that it makes The Deadliest Catch look like a Honolulu harbor cruise. Already hardened by the seas of the Gulf of Alaska, Paul made three of these cruises, collecting more than a dozen new species of skates, rays, sharks, and chimeras that will be published in future years. The species name naylori honors Gavin Naylor of the College of Charleston who, through genetic analysis, is compiling a more complete evolutionary history of extant shark species.

EBERT, D.A. & CLERKIN, P.J. 2015. A new species of deep-sea catshark (Scyliorhinidae: Bythaelurus) from the southwestern Indian Ocean. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation 15:53-63.

And lastly….
Etmopterus benchleyi, Ninja Lanternshark
If you haven’t already seen this sassy new deepsea shark that went viral late last year, check it out here, and here, and here. That makes six new sharks for 2015, but new species will be discovered and described in 2016, so check back next year.
VÁSQUEZ, V.E. & EBERT, D.A. & LONG, D.J. 2015. Etmopterus benchleyi n. sp., a new lanternshark (Squaliformes: Etmopteridae) from the central eastern Pacific Ocean: Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation; 17: 43-55.

The post Meet the New Sharks of 2015 first appeared on Deep Sea News.

I am on a ship 950 miles away from the nearest landmass. Here, in the middle of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, our team sends a remotely-operated vehicle 2.5 miles down to the flat abyssal plain. As deep-sea biologists, we get to see some pretty AH-MAZING sights and this time is no exception: an anemone-like animal with 8-foot tentacles that billow across the seafloor. This creature, Relicanthus sp., is so different from other anemones it was recently moved to a new order.

As incredible as seeing this tentacled beast was, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. It’s difficult for a marine biologist working in an area that may be forever changed within the next two decades. As the demand for metals increases, humans are seeking resources in ever more remote places and the next frontier of mining will likely take place in the deep ocean.

So what are countries after 3 miles deep in the central Pacific Ocean? Potato-sized lumps of metallic ore laden with cobalt, copper, nickel and other rare metals known as polymetallic nodules. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone has the most valuable beds of these nodules that sit like cobbles on a street and form at a rate of a few millimeters per million years. As the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is in international waters, it falls under the mandate of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). So far, there have been 15 mining exploration areas allocated, each up to 75,000 km² or roughly the size of Panama.

Let’s be honest, nodule mining is going to do some damage. Nodules will be removed resulting in local extinctions of the many animals (corals, sponges, bryozoans, polychaetes, nematodes etc.) that call these nodules home and leaving no possibility for their re-establishment in the future. Machines, similar to combine harvesters, will disturb and compact large swathes of sediment, kicking up sediment plumes, which will travel for kilometers before depositing elsewhere. Further entombment of the seafloor will occur when tailings are discharged into the water column. Not to mention other possible impacts that include light and noise pollution from machinery, and major changes to the geochemistry of the sediment, food webs and carbon sequestration pathways. The cumulative impacts of these operations aren’t yet understood but will likely be long-standing and ocean-wide.

Despite this looming threat, the Clarion-Clipperton Zone is critically underexplored. We know little of what species live there. It is mandatory that contractors undertake baseline studies of the biology living at the seafloor before EIAs and mining can begin. The ABYSSLINE Project, which I work on, is doing just that in the easternmost claim area leased to UK Seabed Resources Ltd (UKSRL). My research is trying to find out what megafauna (the awesome charismatic animals over 2 cm in size) live in the UKSRL claim, how abundant and diverse they are, and what ranges they occupy, not only within the claim but also across the entire Clarion-Clipperton Zone. Over the last two years, ABYSSLINE scientists have spent over two months out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sampling the seafloor with a menagerie of oceanographic equipment (plankton pumps, fish traps, a remotely-operated vehicle, an autonomous underwater vehicles, sleds, corers etc.).

Preliminary results show that the UKSRL claim area is rich not only in metals but also in life. The seabed, at a first glance, appeared to not have much living there. Taking a closer look, we realized that there were small animals everywhere: tiny white corals, pink and purple sea cucumbers, bright red shrimp and strange unicellular animals that create sedimented homes the size of your fist. On our first expedition, we sampled an area the size of Hong Kong (30 x 30 km) and found 170 tentative species of megafauna and that’s likely an underestimate! These levels of biodiversity are the highest in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and are comparable to many other abyssal regions worldwide. We also collected 12 megafauna species and half of those were new to science, including some of the most commonly seen, reiterating how little we know of the abyssal life in this region.

The post Megafauna and Minerals on the Pacific Abyss first appeared on Deep Sea News.

The Notorious B.I.G., Mase, and Puff Daddy understand. Increase one variable in a system and another variable rises en suite. For the B.I.G. this was money and problems. It’s like the more money we come across. The more problems we see. In the biological realm, increasing the food available increases the number of species. More food, more species.

In the case of B.I.G., Mase, and Puff how more money becomes more problems is clear. The trio “rock” and “sell out in the stores” which leads to more money. Bag a money much longer than yours. This leads to more purchases. Gotta call me on the yacht. The success and belongings are coveted by others who try to bring the trio down in an effort to elevate themselves. Know you’d rather see me die than to see me fly. But scientists are much less clear about how mo’ food leads to mo’ species. Scientists have erected dozens of hypotheses to explain this rather simple pattern.   Enter a deep-sea experiment that I dedicated 10 years of my life to.

Mo’ individuals, mo’ species hypothesis

Wright posed the more individuals hypothesis. The basic ideas is that low food supports smaller populations of species; any species is likely to be represented by just a few individuals. This makes these species more susceptible to being wiped out locally by a catastrophic event like a storm or predator. If in low food environments species are often going locally extinct, exacerbated by their low population numbers, then these environments are likely possess far less species overall. Wright’s hypothesis is ultimately a no food, mo’ problems, no species hypothesis.

Nothing-special hypothesis

Tilman, in one of the most influential papers in ecology, proposed the resource-ratio hypothesis. To simplify his elegant idea, few species are biologically equipped to deal with any resource at low availability. Mo’ food, mo’ species that can occur. Tilman actually proposed that species in resource-limited areas were just subsets of those living in high-resource areas. This is because any species can benefit with a little mo’ food, but conversely not every species can live with a little less. Tillman took these ideas a step further and actually predicted that at very high food availability the number of species should decrease because another resource would become limiting, i.e. high food habitats are not some beautiful utopia where everything, e.g. habitat space or other nutrients, is abundant.

The diva species/unique and special snowflake hypothesis

Of course this is not the real name of the hypothesis (none of the headings are). Several ecologists have converged on the idea that mo’ food allows for more specialized species. These diva species are very particular in their food type requirements. At low overall food availability, these specific food types are rare and cannot support a diva species. To restate, mo’ food allows species to be specialized. No food and species need to be generalists and take what they can get.

Mo’ food, mo’ prey hypothesis

Another ideas is that mo’ food allows for mo’ prey. This in turns supports mo’ types of predators, thereby increasing diversity. A more sophisticated variant of this is that mo’ complex food webs, containing mo’ species, can occur at higher food availabilities.

Mo’ food, mo’ giants and miniatures

This is a hypothesis of my own creation. Basically, there is “right” size for a given animal to be. This optimal size reflects a balancing of constraints. For example, too big and a species requires too much food. Too small and species does not have enough fat reserves to weather starvation. This suggests that areas with little food would only possess species of this intermediate and optimal size. Mo’ food and these caloric constraints are released and and species can get away with not being an optimal size. Thus both large- and small-sized species are allowed increasing diversity

Tourist hypothesis

Chase proposed another hypothesis that is fundamental to the mo’ food, mo’ species pattern; this pattern can only exist when low and high food habitats are isolated. If migration by adults or larvae can occur from high food to low food, diversity will be artificially elevated in low-food habitats. These tourist species from high-food areas cannot sustain themselves in low-food areas without consistent visits of individuals from these high food areas. Cut the flow of tourists and the diversity of low-food habitats diminishes.

Wood fall, the experiment

Scientists have published lots of creative studies testing aspects of these ideas. However, studies are rare that experimentally alter the food supply to a habitat and observe what happens. It’s not obvious how nor is it easy to increase the amount food at a coral reef or tropical rain forest. Mesocosm experiments, in which scientists creates an artificial system like a miniature ocean in a beaker or aquarium, provide exciting opportunities. My friend and colleague, Allen Hurlburt, conducted once such experiment in which he manipulated the amount of banana in containers.  Fruit flies collected in the rainforest where then allowed to colonize. It remains a beautiful and elegant experiment demonstrating the importance of food in controlling diversity. Allen’s study served as the inspiration for the wood-fall experiment.

Wood falls are the perfect experimental system to test mo’ food, mo’ species hypotheses. Each of the dead pieces of wood on the deep-sea floor represent little food islands. The background and typical deep-sea, muddy bottom is a food desert. The species occurring on wood falls are ultimately dependent on only the wood for nutrition. By ultimately controlling the size of the wood fall, we can control the amount of food the community of species receives.

In 2005, Jim Barry and I chunked 32 Acacia log into the deep ocean off the Central California coast. In actuality, we placed them with an ROV at spot over 3 kilometers deep.

Then we waited.

Five years later we collected half of the wood falls. Two years after that we returned for the other half.

Ten years after initially deploying the wood falls, the main paper from this work is now available as preprint. The nearly decade this experiment took to realize actually results in part reflected the length of the experiment.  However, even once collected a considerable amount of effort was need.  In the last three years, I spent countless hours meticulously sorting all the animals, nearly 13,000 individuals, from the wood falls. Taxonomists, all coauthors on the paper, spent many hours identifying these to species. With the analyses taken over a year plus the writing of the manuscript…well it adds up.

Wood fall, the results

Thankfully, with increased wood-fall size, i.e. increased food, the number of species actually increased. Strikingly, no individual hypothesis was the smoking gun for this increase in diversity.

Rather the mo’ food, mo’ species relationship reflects a combination of routes. In accordance with the mo’ individuals, mo’ species hypothesis, the total number of individuals increased with wood fall size, and was concordant with rises in the number of species. As predicted by the nothing-special hypothesis, the species on smaller wood falls, i.e. food poor, were just subsets of those species occurring on larger wood falls, i.e. mo’ food.   Increasing wood-fall size also lead to increased rare species, supporting the diva species/unique and special snowflake hypothesis. Increased larval connections between small and large wood falls also seemed to ameliorate the mo’ food, mo’ species relationship in conjunction with the tourist hypothesis.

I am just finishing examining body sizes of all the wood-fall species, but interestingly my pet hypothesis about miniatures and giants does not seem to hold. The pattern is far more interesting. Thanks to the many who supported my crowdfund project (I still love that video), David Honig and I are beginning to construct the food web through stable isotope analyses.

Notorious B.I.G., Mase, and Puff Daddy lamented the rise of problems with more money. However, to all three of these artists the reasons why this occurred were pretty straightforward. Haters gonna hate. People gonna covet your yacht. The biological world is much more complex. As simple as mo’ food, mo’ species is, the reasons why this elegant pattern exists represents a variety of interacting processes, only some we are beginning to understand.

McClain, C., Barry, J., Eernisse, D., Horton, T., Judge, J., Kakui, K., Mah, C., & Warén, A. (2015). Multiple Processes Generate Productivity-Diversity Relationships in Experimental Wood-Fall Communities Ecology DOI: 10.1890/15-1669.1

The post More Food, More Species first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Snailfish
by Amy Scott-Murray
on Sketchfab

Octopus
by Amy Scott-Murray
on Sketchfab

The post Play Around With a 3D Snailfish and Octopus Online first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Recent work by Wagner and Opresko clears up the taxonomy for this coral genus, coming firmly down that these methuselah corals from Hawaii are a completely news species. Despite the misleading statements of some news pieces, the specimens were not recently collected nor recently discovered to be old.   Work back in 2009 by Rourke et al. confirmed these record holding lifespans using radiocarbon dating. The specimens were collected from 1971-2009 and have resided in the collections of scientists and museums. This does not detract from the recently published paper by Wagner and Opresko who clear up confusion because these specimens were previously misidentified or unidentified.

Because of this nobody also realized these corals are cooler than David Caruso.

Like other hexacorals, black corals have proteinaceous skeletons covered in tiny spines, polyps wit size non-retractable and non-branching tentacles, and being exclusively colonial. Another distinctive aspect is hexacorals possess six primary mesenteries, internal body walls that radially divide the polyps into compartments. Think of the dishes in Trivia Pursuit that hold the game wedges or rotelle pasta.Most black corals have six primary mesenteries and either no or four secondary mesenteries. But the species in the black coral family Leiopathidae are biologically blinged out with six primary and six secondary mesenteries. Just ignore the fact that the skeletal spines are poorly developed in the black corals. David Caruso? One mesentery and one spine.

The new species is christened Leiopathes annosa (annosa is Latin for long lived). I would have went with Leiopathes meliorcaruso. The defining characteristic compared to other Leipathes species is that the spines, diminutive though they are, are spherical and multi-lobed (see a in the photo above).  Multi-lobed. Yeahhhhh! The closest species in looks to L. annosa is L. bullosa. The spines are not multi-lobed in L. bullosa. L. annosa also has thicker and longer branches along with more and bigger polyps. Yeahhhhh!

So Leiopathes annosa is older and most definitely more awesome than a lot of other corals. And much better than David Caruso.

The post The Deep-Sea Coral That Is Older and More Awesome Than David Caruso first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Roger Norman Bamber (1949-2015)

I am proud to have been given the task of writing this farewell tribute for my great friend Roger Bamber. I am privileged to have known this unforgettable man and it is now my mission to tell as many people around the world why he was so remarkable.

I can start by telling you that Roger Bamber was a prolific and excellent taxonomist. He is best known for his work on both pycnogonids (sea spiders) and tanaidaceans (which don’t have a common name; an issue we have discussed at great length in the pub). Roger Bamber published a total of 213 scientific papers in his lifetime in addition to many hundreds of reports and non- peer reviewed papers and articles

Roger’s first paper on the Pycnogonida (or Pycnobeasts as he referred to them) was published in 1979 and he followed this first paper with a further 46 papers on them. He established an Order, a Family, a Subfamily, a Genus and 42 new species of pycnogonid. Roger was particularly proud of his 2010 book ‘Sea-spiders (Pycnogonida) of the Northeast Atlantic. Keys and notes to the identification of species’, to which he would point anyone with a query on the group as it was likely covered somewhere within the books 257 pages. A Judith Price, Assistant Collection Manager of Crustacea & Parasites at the Canadian Museum of Nature, noted Roger had a most dismissive attitude to the ecological importance of his beloved pycnobeasts. “If all the pycnogonids on Earth were to vanish tomorrow, I would be one of the five organisms left who gave a damn.”

Judith will be one of the very many who will give a damn that Roger has vanished.

His second love was perhaps the Tanaidacea. Few taxonomists stretch to covering two different groups in this way, yet Roger took this in his stride. He published his first paper on the Tanaidacea in 1986 and his first taxonomic work on them in 1990. His ‘second love’ could be argued to have somewhat overtaken his first, as he went on to describe a total of two families, three subfamilies, 38 genera, one subgenus and an astounding 225 tanaidacean species!

His extraordinary track record for species descriptions does not stop at these favoured taxa as Roger also authored or co-authored seven isopod species, two amphipod species, one leptostracan, six mysids, one Bochusacean, 2 copepod taxa (including a new genus) and 3 polychaete taxa (including a new genus).

Roger appreciated a scientific name with a bit of thought put into it, as he so often put into his species names. This was part of the taxonomic process that he thoroughly enjoyed and which is exemplified by the many unusual names he bestowed upon his new taxa. He was particularly proud of the name

• Tanystylum sinoabductus Bamber, 1992 a species of pycnogonid which came from the South China Sea and was thus a ‘Chinese takeaway’ although the etymology in this case modestly reads: “The name for this species, unique in being the first to be described from Hong Kong, is from the Latin, meaning that which is taken from China.”
• Macrolabrum impedimenta Bamber, 2005 starred in a collection of species in which “The novel nomenclature derives from the names of characters or places from the ‘Discworld’ series of novels by Terry Pratchett, particularly Pratchett (1999) which refers to the “Last Continent”, a place which “just happens to be a bit … Australian”. All the taxa were from Western Australia and Macrolabrum impedimenta is a tanaid species with characteristic spination on each of the legs that give it the appearance of having lots of smaller legs hence the Etymology reads “from the Latin impedimenta – luggage, the Luggage being a notable and fearsome entity from the Counterweight Continent, Discworld, with a lot of small legs”.
• Keska sei Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, Bamber & Jóźwiak, 2012, is one of my favourites for which the Etymology reads: “Phonetically from the name apparently given to this species by a French colleague on first seeing the drawings (in combination with the specific epithet)”. Enough said.

In total Roger Bamber established 338 taxa—an absolutely amazing track record.

Currently there are seven species named in his honour, including genera of Pycnogonida and Tanaidacea. Bamberus jinigudirus Stepieri, Blazewicz-Paszkowycz, 2013; Austrodecus bamberi Wang, Huang, Lin & Zheng, 2013; Kalliapseudes bamberi Drumm & Heard, 2011; Leptognathia bamberi Larsen & Shimomura, 2007; Makassaritanais bamberi Gutu, 2012; Bamberene Staples, 2014; Chauliopleona bamberi Bird, 2015. A special, forthcoming issue of the journal Zootaxa that will name many more after this prolific man.

Roger’s reach extended far beyond taxa and publications. Throughout his working life Roger developed and maintained an interest in numerous diverse fields, including of course deep-sea biology, and he will be remembered by many for his attendance at international meetings. He was an integral member of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) community was responsible for the Pycnogonida and Tanaidacea. He also provided valuable input to the World Register of Deep-Sea Species (WoRDSS). Roger was a well-known member of a number of editorial boards (Zootaxa Editor, for Pycnogonida, Tanaidacea, Cumacea; Editor of Zookeys, Pycnogonida; Editorial Advisory Board for Polish Polar Research; Guest Editor for Journal of Natural History) and his input to these was invaluable.

One of the many tasks of a modern taxonomist is to provide guidance and advice to fledgling taxonomists as they prepare their first papers and learn the ‘tools of the trade’ and this is something Roger was particularly adept at. He would gladly accept manuscripts to edit and comment on, and had the required patience and ability conduct this task with ease.   He was a celebrated pedant, always ready to correct a grammatical injustice and known to carry a red pen in his top pocket for such occasions as might arise. His talents as an eloquent writer of prose must not be overlooked.

Roger was always great company, interesting, engaging, controversial, but always good fun. He certainly stood out from the crowd with his unmistakable and timeless unique style! He was unusual, amongst academics, in successfully carrying off a mixture of a great intellect and no-nonsense approach to science, with an infectious amiability and ability to enjoy life to the fullest. He was always (and I mean ALWAYS) happy to have a beer with you (and definitely two or three). He smoked more than anyone I have ever known, and he also really appreciated good food. Therefore, it was in the pub, restaurant, or outside smoking that Roger could be relied upon to be found and it was always in these places that the best discussions, friendships and memories were made.

I thought long and hard about how best to end this farewell but decided that it was probably best done by the man himself, so I invite you to watch a presentation by Roger which was recorded at Joel Hedgepeth’s memorial meeting in 2008.

I hope that by watching this video you will get a flavour of Roger’s character, his wonderful pedantry, his particular sense of humour, and his immense knowledge.

Over to you Rog…

Bamber R.N. , 2005. The Tanaidaceans (Arthropoda: Crustacea: Peracarida: Tanaidacea) of Esperance, Western Australia, Australia. Proceedings of the Twelfth International Marine Biological Workshop: pp. 613-728. In: F.E. Wells, D.I. Walker and G.A. Kendrick (eds). The Marine Flora and Fauna of Esperance, Western Australia. Western Australian Museum, Perth.

Błażewicz-Paszkowycz M., Bamber R.N. & Jóźwiak P. 2012. Tanaidaceans (Crustacea: Peracarida) from the SoJaBio joint expedition in slope and deeper waters of Japan. Deep Sea Research II. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2012.08.006

The post Roger Norman Bamber (1949-2015) first appeared on Deep Sea News.

You already know that Deep Sea News provides expert reporting, in-depth analysis, first-person research, and sarcastic mockery of contemporary topics relevant to our ocean world. Unlike other popular science sites that can be wildly imaginative and dangerously inaccurate, DSN’s crew of scientists cut through the pop-science b.s. and re-posted misinformation to deliver ocean news that you can trust.

But did you know the DSN Facebook site provides even more delicious science nuggets each week for your inquiring mind to chew and savor? Beginning this week, as a premium for our Facebook friends, each and every Monday from now until eternity* will feature the shell of a different marine marine organism in an ongoing DSN internet event called Malacology Monday.

Dipping into the vast marine science collection from the Lobos Marinos International Marine Science (& Cocktails), we will bring you the dazzling array of evolutionary innovations, complex architecture, and endless aesthetics that sea shells deliver. For each species featured we will also communicate bona-fide scientific information and curious facts about the ecology and adaptations of extant and extinct mollusks, as well as the long human history with marine shellfish and their impact on our own culture.

If you like mollusks, and in particular malacology, this is a much-need intravenous drip of taxonomic enlightenment and morphological bliss, and if you aren’t yet in the cult, Malacology Monday will be the digital gateway drug to a soul fulfilling and mind expanding appreciation of our underwater world. So start each week with a stiff shot of mollusks on Deep Sea News’ Facebook Page.

*Eternity not exclusive of time away for expeditions, conferences, vacation, last-minute pre-deadline grant-writing, finals week grading, benders, mandatory time at the honor rancho, amnesia, malaise, or the untimely demise of the concept’s host.

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The post Malacology Monday first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Flagellum and ingesting puppies, metaphorically speaking, is the norm for most sponges.  However, in the dark depths of oceans and in the black caverns of the marine caves, lurks Earth’s strangest creatures—the carnivorous sponges.

Most sponges are composed of spicules, little shards of silica, that provide structure.  In the carnivorous sponges, Cladorhizidae, some spicules are shaped like hooks.  Unsuspecting tiny crustaceans or other animals near the sponge are often caught in the sheets of hooks that line the surface of the Cladorhizid sponges, much schmutz in Velcro.  In some Cladorhizids copepods may be caught by an adhesive surface.  Once a crustacean is caught, the cells surrounding mobilize, cover, and create a temporary cavity around the crustacean.  Within this cavity the crustacean is digested.  It’s the equivalent of mosquito being caught in your arm hairs , the skins cells then form a layer of skin over it, and finally you digest the mosquito just below the surface of the skin.

The first species of Cladorhizid was described only recently in 1995 from submarine caves in the Mediterranean.  In approximately the last 20 years, 33 species have been discovered and described, with several more in the works. Even though new to humans, Cladorhizids have dwelled on Earth since at least the Pleistocene, 2 million years ago.  Fossils from this period are easily identifiable as the bizarre sponges.  However, 200 million year old spicules do bear a striking resemblance to those from the carnivorous sponges of the modern oceans.

Even more unusual is the bewildering shapes that Cladorhizids take, from the pipe cleaner structure of Abestopluma, to the ping pong tree structure of Chondrocladia lampadiglobus, to the beautiful harp shape of Chondrocladia lyra. The evolutionary reasons for this vast variety of shapes among species remains a major unknown, as is most of the biology of the fascinating group. Despite our lack of knowledge a carnivorous sponge is deserving of rightful place as a top 10 species.

Les Watling (2007). Predation on copepods by an Alaskan cladorhizid sponge. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, pp 1721-1726. doi:10.1017/S0025315407058560.

Vacelet, Jean & Boury-Esnault, N. (1995): Carnivorous sponges. Nature 373 (6512): 333–335. doi:10.1038/373333a0

Lee, W. L., Reiswig, H. M., Austin, W. C. and Lundsten, L. (2012), An extraordinary new carnivorous sponge, Chondrocladia lyra, in the new subgenus Symmetrocladia (Demospongiae, Cladorhizidae), from off of northern California, USA. Invertebrate Biology. doi: 10.1111/ivb.12001

The post Flesh Eating Sponges? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

We’re still working out the kinks…and trust us, these new things can get pretty kinky (#TWSS). Bear with us as we build up our visual smorgasbord, and be sure to check out our initial smattering of pinboards:

• Invertebrate Love – All invertebrate pictures, all the time
• Giant Squid – This board needs no explanation
• Habitats of the Deep – Showcasing what the deep sea actually looks like; it ain’t all mud plains!
• Gadgets & Gear – Because “every now and then you just need to stare at some cold hard steel”
• Waves + Fluds = Physics, baby! – All the physical oceanography goodness you ever wanted
• Let’s get it on – Come on, what would DSN be without a Pinterest board on marine sex?
• Fish, sharks, and marine mammals – Well someone needs to grow a backbone around here.
• Marine research bucket list – A personal board for us Deeplings, to showcase our most wished-for research questions and field sites
• The ocean…from SPAAAACE! – Satellite images of the ocean are so awesome that they need their own board.
• Drink up me harties – A board about beer and other tipples we drink while blogging
• Conservation & Conversation – Upcoming events, breaking news, viral content

The post Announcing the DSN Pinterest empire! first appeared on Deep Sea News.