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Leslie

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Posts posted by Leslie

  1. Posted

    What great photos! Beng able to see worm shots like this is the reason I joined wetpixel - there's so much information to be gained from photographs of live animals. This particular critter is very similar to the animal identified as Eunice longisetis in Humann & Deloach 2002. Thanks for sharing these with us--

    Leslie

  2. Posted

    Alex - thanks for the new pictures - they're really great! In the close ups there's some sign of transparent mucus tubes. What's especially interesting is that none of the individual worms show any signs of asexual reproduction. In other species it's hard to find any non-reproducing individuals. I wonder how such juicy morsels can live on the sponge's surface unmolested; perhaps they rely on the sponge's toxicity for protectiion or acquire it themselves by feeding on sponge cells. thanks again, Leslie

  3. Posted

    Live animals, huh? Their keepers belong to the Education department & don't venture down into our collection areas (also known as the worm tomb, crab crypt, mollusc mausoleum and echinoderm embalming studio) very often. And you can't bug me.... those belong on the second floor....

    L :wink:

  4. Posted

    Jonothon Lowry? In Los Angeles? Not a familiar name.... but I live in the basement among bottles of dead things & may not have known him if he was on another floor. The only Lowry currently at this museum is a woman in charge of the gift shop.

    Sorry, Leslie

  5. Posted

    Hi --

     

    Decorator crab with hydroids? Really? I can't see a single articulated joint, those white spots are way too regular for attached detritus, and the knobby bits are all along the edges. My guess is a juvenile frogfish or something related.

     

    Cheers,

    Leslie

  6. Posted

    Hi Alex --

     

    I took a second look at your images. So there were 2 types of Polydorella? One with the mucus tubes with attached sediment and one without tubes? Possibly these are different species as life history and pigmentation can be diagnostic characters for spionids. Last year Johann Hinterkircher sent me pictures for id which included 2 Polydorella species. One was identical to yours, apparently free living on a red sponge & with the same prominent lateral banding, inconspicuous eyes, & white dorsal mass. The other species was brown with a middorsal white stripe, white eyes, and thin clear mucus tube on a pink sponge. P. smurovi was reported to deposit its eggs in capsules inside its tubes. Your tubeless species may be carrying its egg capsules around on its back similar to some syllid polychaetes, but this is complete conjecture on my part. The white mass just doesn't look like any polychaete-associated copepod I've ever seen. I'll be very interested in seeing Temir's opinion. As a good taxonomist I'm sure his immediate response will be just like mine "I need those worms!"

     

    Any more polychaetes in need of id?

     

    (And Art, thanks for the promotion, but I'm the collection manager of polychaetes here at NHMLAC, not the curator!)

     

    Leslie

  7. Posted

    Hi --

     

    Actually, I think these animals are chaetognaths. The long straight bodies with a "propeller" at one end are typical for the group. There's none of the softness you'd see in a siphonophore. Images of chaetognaths can be found at the 2 web sites below. The first is a report on marine organisms along Lebanon (and is very slow loading); the second is a pictorial account of animal phyla from Columbia University.

    Cheers,

    Leslie

     

     

    http://csrd.lau.edu.lb/Publications/Studen...al%20Waters.htm

    http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/ees/...aetognatha.html

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