Some Excellent Japanese Echinoderms! Textures and Closeups!

I've been in Japan for the last 6 weeks studying Japanese sea stars at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tsukuba, Japan!

As this is my last week at the museum I thought I would share some neat pics of some of the interesting echinoderms that I've encountered over the last few weeks....

Trophodiscus almus. This is an unusual species, which brood baby sea stars on its top surface! You see those weird round to star shaped white spots on the surface? Those are the juveniles which live on the surface among the "forest" of spines present..

 A close up....  I've featured this species before as seen in Japan, courtesy of my colleague Yoichi Kogure!!   The Japanese name for this species is komochi-momiji, aka the "starfish with babies"

Close up of the stalked crinoid Saracrinus nobilis!  This closeup shows us the arrangement of plates on the various arms and how they fuse together to form the various skeletal architecture used to identify them and to compose the arm structure..

A picture of the stalk.. note the angles!!  Cool!

A slightly different crinoid.. a feather star. (an unstalked vs. the stalked species above).but a closeup of the arms and how they articulate and form different fused pieces...

Here's the spines of a beautiful species, Coelopleurus maculata! I've covered Coelopleurus briefly before. Their tests are naturally rich and colorful!!   

   

Again, to emphasize: The spine colors are NATURAL. nothing added!!

Here's what I believe to be Prionocidaris baculosa.. also with some unusual spine patterns...

An unidentified white cidaroid urchin with some wonderful spination...

an interesting tropical basket star!

and of course, OGMASTER!

The Hidden Treasure of Trophodiscus!

Today, we take another look at some of the exploration and discovery that goes on Behind-The Scenes in the museum I work in.

I previously blogged about this subject. The short version: a huge collection of starfish returned to us with great historical value but which had been hidden away in storage for some 30+ years.
Some interesting stuff...but also, some TREASURE.

MANY scores of specimens among MANY boxes:
So, the SUMMER has finally arrived! And with the summer?

INTERNS & STUDENTS (courtesy of the US Antarctic Research Program)! Bless their little hearts!

They got right to work on unpacking, curating and cataloging the big-boxes-o-starfishes & such!
When you go through a 30+ year old collection like this, you find many...unusual items (but also TREASURE!-as we'll see!).

So, what have we got?

1. Funky Antique biscuit boxes!
2. Unfilled University of Wellington Zoology Program Application!
...but best of all...THIS weird little starfish: Behold: TROPHODISCUS!!!!
Trophodiscus (Family Astropectinidae) does something pretty cool-it BROODS babies.

Now, lots of starfish brood (like this one) but THIS species does so, in a unique way.

On the top surface of these animals are structures known as paxillae. Tall columns that are covered by spines. These are common to the order Paxillosida, which a group of sea stars that live in unconsolidated sediments-mud and sand.

The paxillae are thought to act as kind of a tent. The gills (papulae) are found at the bases of each paxillae and not only protect the papulae from being clogged-but there's fine cilia that cover the surface that push microcurrents so they can respire!
Trophodiscus keeps those small starfish babies on the body surface among the paxillae!!

Look at the little star-shaped babies (in the red circle) living between the arms:
and close up....
Where do these funky things live? A review of this species was recently performed by my colleague Yoichi Kogure . See this paper here.

Kogure even gave it a Japanese name: Komochi-momiji !! (I will have to find out what that means!)

They occur in the Sea of Okhotsk and the Japan Sea in relatively deep water in 150-300 m and that's all. They're pretty rarely encountered.

So, when we pulled one out of a box that had been in storage for 30+ years??

Yow.

Buried treasure, baby.