Although we have gotten our first sequences back, we have not started to clean them up and run them through a database full of sequences from across the animal kingdom (and beyond). This is because we are so busy processing new worms! We have spent three mornings collecting nemerteans from mudflats (a habitat I have not been in before) this week and have loads of worms to document and preserve. This time around, we found different worms from the ones we found in the rocky intertidal when we spent some time collecting in that region. Many of the worms from the mudflats are in the classes Pilidiophora and Paleonemertea, so they will not be going into my identification guide (mine will cover the remaining class, Hoplonemertea), but will be in Rebecca’s guide. However, we found some Hoplonemerteans so I processed stylets for those species and found that some individuals of the same “species” (really a cryptic species complex) have a different number of accessory stylet pouches (where backup stylets are made and stored), possibly providing a way to differentiate between species in the complex. Collecting in the mudflats is very different from doing so in the rocky intertidal. Rather than scouring rocks and algae for worms, we dig in the sand using shovels. It is a lot more labor-intensive and involves a lot more luck. We basically scoop out mud and look for worms as it falls apart in the shovel. The issue is that the worms are often destroyed by the shovel blade so we have to be lucky that the blade does not come into contact with them under the sand (since we can’t see where they are before we dig). However, we did obtain some worms entirely intact and were very excited to obtain such valuable and informative specimens (having the complete worm gives us a lot more identifying features to work with than only a body fragment does). While digging for worms, many locals came up to us to ask what we were doing. Most of them thought we were digging for clams and were surprised that we were looking for worms. It was very rewarding to interact with the public and tell them about our work. Many of them were genuinely interested in our research, and it feels great to be working on something that others care about (even if only while they are talking to us). I remember talking to people that studied biology and being amazed by them so it was extremely fulfilling to be on the other side of that interaction by helping others become interested in marine animals. We have been so busy processing worms this week that we kind of forgot about the eggs I mentioned in my last post. However, we were lucky enough to check on the egg masses right as the baby worms were exiting them! I put a picture down below. We think these are a species in the genus Tetrastemma (a group of Hoplonemerteans). Some tetrastemma are known to lay their egg masses on surf grass, although this is not very common in ribbon worms. We don’t know exactly how long it took the tiny worms to emerge since we don’t know when the masses were fertilized, but it took no longer than a month for them to develop from eggs into mobile worms. This is a Maculaura magna, a worm we found in the mudflats. Despite spending most of its time buried in mud, the front part of its body is a vibrant pink. These worms have no eyes and use something more similar to our sense of smell to get around the mudflats. The little thread on the end of the worm is not technically considered a tail but is called a “caudal cirrus”. Like many other aspects of nemertean biology, no one knows what it is used for.
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AuthorI am Jacob and am from Rancho Cucamonga, CA. I am a rising Junior at Pomona College in Claremont, CA who has never studied marine biology in school before but has always been interested in it. I am incredibly excited to spend the next two months working in Svetlana Maslakova’s lab studying Nemertean (ribbon worm) biodiversity through genetic analysis. Archives
August 2021
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