Five Highlights from my NEW paper about the genus Ferdina and its relatives!

GREETINGS! Last week, a new paper I've literally been working on since I finished my PhD has FINALLY been completed! Its easily my largest monograph at the moment and includes a whopping 14 new species, 3 new genera and a new subfamily!

For those who are interested, it was in the latest issue of Zootaxa, published online here (I don't believe the print version is out yet). 

The paper focuses on a group of tropical shallow/deep goniasterid sea stars which include reef setting genera such as Neoferdina but also seldom studied genera such as Ferdina and their relatives. I actually ended up describing 3 additional new genera and MANY new species!

Its always nice when the work is done and the specimens can go back to their home institutions.. many of these specimens were from the echinoderm collections at the Museum national d'Historie naturelle! 

Although the paper is "old school" and was done without molecules, to me it still represents a good example of taxonomy in the 21st Century?  I've written about how taxonomy has been done with new technology and other aspects here... 

The whole thing is a lot to unpack.. and so here's some take away lessons that I thought I would share from writing it!

1. Citizen Science & Social Media Made a Significant Contribution! 
I've talked about this before.. the world is flooded with divers, photographers and interested people with cell phones all over the world! 

Thanks to a combination of museum collections and divers I was able to identify and describe several new species and even add color variation to poorly known species in the group I published on! Many times these get misidentified as people try to "shoehorn" them into known species in field guides. 

This new species for example, Neoferdina oni from the Philippines! I actually identified this species based on material collected by the California Academy of Sciences from one of their recent expeditions (such as this one)

The photographer of this specimen, Martha Kiser was incredibly helpful in allowing me to see her photos of this new species. You can see more of her work on Flickr here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/martykiser/sets/with/72157634344493477

I will likely do a separate post on the etymology of these new species a bit later, but the species epithet of this one "oni" represents a horned demon from Japan which alludes to the two spines on each plate along the side!

Images such as this one gave me more insight into how the colors vary in already established species! and provide leads to possible NEW species...

2. The Mesophotic Zone: New studies and new Species! 
There's a depth region in the ocean that falls just below "coral reef" (~30m) depth but just above the "deep sea" (above 200m).. that's roughly between 100 and 500 feet. More about this area here. and this entire website devoted to this area! 

This area is also known as the "Twilight Zone" aka the "sub Reef area" and contains a fauna that is related and similar but distinctly different from those seen at the surface. 

The California Academy of Sciences's research division as well as their Steinhart Aquarium have both been studying this area in the Philippines. In 2015, they collected this lovely beast, (and here was a news account showing it off) which I had also been observing in the Paris collections from areas throughout the Indo-Pacific!

I initially identified it as a familiar genus, Neoferdina, but eventually realized it was actually a separate and undescribed genus which I named Bathyferdina! 

I've actually been describing Mesophotic Zone starfish for quite a long time. Here was Astrosarkus idipi from many years ago aka the "Great Pumpkin Starfish" and there were several more as well...

One important take away message: Describing new species is PART of understanding the biology of a NEW ecosystem. This was the same thing that happened with understanding all of those predatory coral starfish.. new species led to understanding each "character" of a new ecosystem!

3. Museums & Travel: Where the New Species Roam 
Here's a neat new species from the western Indian Ocean-Madagascar and the east coast of South Africa.. Ferdina mena! Identified by the two distinctive bald patches present in each interradius (i.e. the "armpit") of the starfish.

Thanks to the stunning photos of "Optical Allusion" I was even able to find living images of this species in South Africa!

I have a strangely long history with this species.. I identified one of these (mistakenly) for the field guide Coral Reef Animals of the Indo-Pacific by Terry Gosliner, Gary Williams, and Dave Behrens- as Ferdina sadhensis which was known only from Oman.

During one of my recent visits to Paris and the Museum national d'HIstorie naturelle in Paris, I discovered that this wasn't just an odd specimen with the twin bald, red spots in each interradius..it was present on ALL of the specimens collected from a collection made from Madagascar!!

Following this, I was visiting the Iziko Museum in South Africa in 2015 and discovered the SAME species from the east coast of South Africa! Citizen scientists in South Africa also showed me MANY photos of starfishes which confirmed the specimens.

and to return to the citizen science angle.. images on Flickr further showed this species in Mozambique as well as further color and pattern variation of this species from South Africa thanks to photographer Derek Keats and others!

In both cases, these specimens had been collected and sitting in these museums awaiting discover for YEARS. In Paris-2007 and 2010 and from the Iziko Museum collections-in 1986!!!

So, somewhere in there, this seems to be consistent with the "21 years" which malacologist Dr. Philippe Bouchet has published as the average time it takes for a specimen to get from collection to publication! 

4. Conservation: Aquarium shops & Misidentified starfish
This was an interesting lesson.

For one of the new species I had discovered, Paraferdina plakos, I only had one or two individuals on which to base my new species description. Were they the same? Was it variation? How do different individuals differ from one another? Are the defining characters the same across the species range?

SO, I took advantage of some aspects of the internet which I usually list as pet peeves...

1. Misidentified species made by people who don't want/need to figure out the correct species
2. Pictures of species collected by Internet aquarium and pet shops

I was actually able to make OVER TWENTY OBSERVATIONS of this species misidentified as the common "peppermint star" Fromia monilis!!

This led to ANECDOTAL information about its color and how individuals varied in shape. One or two sites actually were pretty up front about declaring how their specimens had been collected from Sri Lanka, suggesting a further occurrence point for this species.

What does this tell us? Not ONLY are A LOT of new species yet to be discovered but we are ALREADY seeing them sold in the pet trade.. and with no correct identifications by scientists to recognize them, are they endangered? For a species that has just been described we know NOTHING bout its reproductive biology, populations, can they handle the strain of being "fished" for this trade???

5. Mysterious Crystalline Nodules! MicroLenses? or just developing granules? 

On several of the species of starfish I've worked on, close examination of the surface revealed that there were HUNDREDS of these glassy crystalline nodules embedded on the surface of the skeleton!

These have been used as a taxonomic character in sea stars for well over 80 years..but recent work by some biophysicists and echinoderm colleagues have found crystals used as lenses in brittle stars! (here)  and reported in Nature in 2001.  Some paleontologists have argued these are present in Cretaceous sea stars. and just last year, microlens arrays were observed in the shallow, tropical species Archaster typicus..

In this  newly discovered genus and species from New Caledonia, Kanakaster solidus shows these crystalline bodies as a sort of pebbling all over the body surface, which is pretty suggestive of the microlens idea.. but I suppose they could also be incipient or underdeveloped granules which cover the body surface as almost a kind of thick tissue.

from Kankaster solidus, holotype

Whereas, in this species, Kanakaster discus, the crystalline structures are actually arranged in stellate formations rather than simply as granulated pebbling. Much more suggestive of a "lens" type function I would think.. but hard to say without more data.

from Kanakaster discus, holotype

If these ARE lenses? Why do the patterns differ? Some "lenses" are present in shallow-water species whereas others are present in deeper water species! And how are the patterns adaptive? If that's indeed the case? 

Many, MORE questions! and probably at least one more post about these newly discovered animals! 

P is for Parasitic Snail! Enter: The Eulimidae!

From the Eulimidae EOL image gallery-Moorea Biocode

Last week, we saw some pics of big predatory snails feeding on starfish!  This week, we turn our attention to smaller snails with a more insidious means of feasting on their hapless echino-prey!

Behold the Eulimidae! A family of snails, whose primary means of nutrition is feeding on echinoderms...specifically as PARASITES! They pretty much attach themselves to every class within the living Echinodermata: urchins, crinoids, brittle stars, sea cucumbers (remember the sea pigs?) and today's subject... starfish!!

Eulimids are insanely diverse. There's over 85 genera and easily hundreds of species. With likely more being discovered as they are found on their hosts..

If you guys ever need a one-stop shop paper on the Eulimidae, you are in luck! This paper (behind a paywall) includes a summary of biology as well as an overview to all the genera.   The acknowledged world expert on these is Anders Waren,  a scientist at the Swedish Natural History Museum

Basically, eulimid snails feed by sticking their proboscis into their host and sucking the tasty, delicious juices out of them. This in itself is kind of interesting because most echinoderms use a kind of specially treated seawater (filled with body cells called coelomocytes) as a bodily fluid.

Apparently, its these cells-the coelomocytes upon which the snails feed... Note below, the extended probsocis...

This snail was described as Melanella with what appears to be its proboscis extended and gives you a general idea of how these snails operate...

Image from EOL's Eulimidae image gallery

Here is a snail in the genus Parvioris with its proboscis extended and the animal hard at work..

From the Eulimidae EOL image gallery-Moorea Biocode

From what I've been able to determine, certain snails DO tend to occur on certain hosts, but the pattern doesn't always seem to be consistent. Some specific species of snails apparently occur on different starfish hosts but some are specific to types of hosts, e.g. sea urchins or sea cucumbers.. Many of these are undersampled, and so it still remains to be seen how much host variation is observed..

1. Ectoparasites. Some eulimids are ectoparasites, that is they are attached, but only on the exterior.. Here's one hunkered down on the disk of the very gorgeous goniasterid Iconaster longimanus.

Here's another one attached to the sand star Archaster from Singapore, but several species of starfish are often hosts. Here's a short write up on their page about them..

Another well-known ectoparasite is the eulimid called Thyca crystallina...

These are famously parasites on the blue starfish Linckia laevigata where they are often found on the oral surface around the tube foot grooves..

We often see these snails well-camoflaged as the same distinctive color which identifies their host...

Some are not so well-hidden.. (and yes, sometimes Linckia laevigata is orange!)

2. Endoparasites!  On the OTHER hand..some eulimid snails, get pretty "dug in" and have literally buried themselves in their work!

They basically embed themselves in the host, attach their proboscis directly to the internal arm canals and just suck on em' all day....  This one, Parvioris fulvescens looks like its embedded itself in what looks like Ophidiaster (?)

From Femoreale Shells via EOL

Here..we have some which have embedded themselves in Neoferdina, a goniasterid... Note how they've pretty much buried themselves INTO the skeleton of the animal. The starfish are strongly calcified.. and since there's no clear damage, I wonder if  these get in as juveniles...

Here's one called Stylifer which has buried itself in the arm of the ophidiasterid Linckia multifora

3. Parasites of the Deep! 
and lest, you think that eulimids only parasitize shallow water reef species, let it be known that many deep-sea starfish are also parasitized by snails! Here is Asterophila japonicus as reported by Sasaki et al. in: Sasaki, T., Muro, K. & Komatsu, M. 2007. Anatomy and ecology of the shell-less endoparasitic gastropod, Asterophila japonica Randall and Heath, 1912 (Mollusca: Eulimidae).Zoological Science 24(7): 700-713.

This species seems to be a host in the astropectinid sea star Leptychaster,where it has burrowed UNDER the disk and lives right above the stomach!

Several of the deep-sea snail parasites are VERY unusual and some have bodies which are SO reduced that you can barely recognize them as snails..  One deep-sea snail parasite, Asterophila rathbunasteri described only in 1994! lives as a gall in the arms of the deep-sea, multi-armed asteroid which lives off the west coast of North America...

Which they were actually unable to ID to phylum until they realized, when it was spawning, that it was producing veligers (snail juveniles)!!

the HORROR!

Springtime!

Springtime!!
Neoferdina!!
Springtime!!Neoferdina!!
Neoferdina!!
Springtime!!
This week...some SECRET stuff going on!!!! more on this later!

Next week...Blogging from the Deep-Sea Image Taxonomy Workshop at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Monterey, CA!!