Tag: Top 10

Ocean treasures: Two new species from ZooKeys highlighted by WoRMS

Two of 2023’s top marine species were first introduced to the scientific world on the pages of our journal ZooKeys.

Where would we be without taxonomists? We wouldn’t even want to imagine such a scenario, even though experts in taxonomy are declining at an alarming rate, just like some of the threatened species they describe.

Experts in insect taxonomy “threatened by extinction” reveals the first European Red List of Taxonomists

This Taxonomist Appreciation Day is a great excuse to marvel at the amazing species that biodiversity specialists continue describing across the globe. The World Register of Marine Species does that by publishing a selection of the top 10 marine species published each year – we’re proud to share with you that two of 2023’s top marine species were first introduced to the scientific world on the pages of our journal ZooKeys!

One of them is Tetranemertes bifrost, a beautiful ribbon worm from the Carribean whose description was published in ZooKeys.

Tetranemertes bifrost

The most spectacularly colored nemertean in the Caribbean, if not the world, it has a long, thin, thread-like body that can stretch much more than 200 mm long. Its head has a characteristic, narrow diamond or spearhead shape, vaguely reminiscent of a viper’s head.

Its name refers to the bright, colorful iridescent stripes and spots characterizing it. Bifrost, the rainbow bridge in the Norse mythology, reaches between Midgard, the human Earth, and Asgard, the realm of the gods. Some authors state that the name Bifrost means “shimmering path” or “the swaying road to heaven”, and that it might be inspired by the Milky Way.

This benthic marine worm usually lives in coral rubble, gravel, and shell hash. It can often be found stretched between nooks and crannies of the substratum.

Tetranemertes bifrost

Found near Bocas del Toro, Panamá, it is one of the first records of this genus in the Carribean sea.

In the 1970s, some 50 years before it was scientifically described, Smithsonian photographer Kjell Sandved took a picture of it draped over an unknown fan coral off Puerto Rico.

The second ZooKeys species featured in the selection is the whimsical Nautilus samoaensis.

Nautilus samoaensis

Nautiloids were in fact quite plentiful throughout the oceans at one point, based upon the fossil record. Today, they are represented by just a handful of species. Nautilus samoaensis and two other species got described as new to science in ZooKeys in early 2023, proving that Nautilus are more diverse than one could think.

Nautilus samoaensis has a beautiful shell; in fact, its shell color pattern is the most unique of all Nautilus species. It is composed of multiple, branching stripes that have a rearward projection after descending from the venter. No other known Nautilus species shows this color pattern. It lives near Pago Pago, American Samoa, where it has been found at depths between 200 and 400 m.

This marine species also ranked second in Pensoft’s Top 10 New Species selection for 2023.

Last year, we told you about the peculiarities of studying nautilus species, but these animals are actually under a serious threat from illegal fishing, as they are highly prized for their shells.

The Top 10 Marine Species is an initiative that brings awareness to the importance of the work of biodiversity scholars, so announcing it on Taxonomist Appreciation Day is only fitting; but it also highlights the need to better protect our oceans and the unique life that hides in there.

Four Cheers for Marine Diversity: New species from Pensoft journals float their way up to the ‘TOP 10’ charts of WoRMS

The Harry Potter ‘hero’ crab, Palau president’s colonial anemone and the ‘living fossil’ octocoral published in ZooKeys along with the Bob Marley’s intertidal spider from the pages of Evolutionary Systematics made it to the top in the two lists compiled by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). The ‘TOP 10’ charts mark the 10th anniversary of the organisation dedicated to noting down all creatures splashing around Earth’s marine habitats.

While the three species in the ‘Ten remarkable new marine species from 2017’ list have been bathing in glory mostly thanks to their prominent human namesakes, the octocoral from Japan found a place amongst the ‘Ten astounding marine species of the last decade (2007-2017)’ after being identified as a ‘living fossil’.

To compile the lists, WoRMS first invited all their editors to nominate their favourites in the two disciplines, and then asked a small committee of taxonomists and data managers to provide their votes.

Without further ado, let’s dive into a little bit of a reminder to find out exactly why and how those particular species turned up at the top.

 

  • Harry Potter ‘hero’ crab (Harryplax severus)

Harryplax severus 2

To the delight of the millions of fans of the iconic fantasy franchise Harry Potter around the world, a new species of charming crab discovered in the coral reefs of the island of Guam, the Pacific Ocean, was named after not one, but two of their favourite characters – protagonist Harry Potter and the villain-turned-hero Professor Severus Snape.

Luckily for lead author and self-confessed ‘Potterhead’ Dr. Jose Christopher E. Mendoza, the crustacean was simultaneously identified as a new species and a new genus, which made it possible to have the genus name (Harryplax) ‘reserved’ for the famous fictional wizard, while the species name (severus) remains dedicated to his secretive teacher.

Furthermore, the two scientists – Dr. Jose Christopher E. Mendoza and Dr. Peter Ng, both affiliated with the National University of Singapore – used the scientific name of their rubble-inhabiting discovery to pay tribute to its initial collector – Harry Conley. About 20 years ago, the “soft-spoken ex-Marine with a steely determination and a heart of gold” collected a curious-looking crab from the waters of Guam to unknowingly hand his successors with a piece of nature’s undescribed gems.

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Learn more about Harryplax severus on our blog or read the study published in our open access journal ZooKeys.

 

  • Bob Marley’s intertidal spider (Desis bobmarleyi)

Female Desis bobmarleyi

It’s true – underwater spiders are for real!

Keep calm, though, they tend to be tiny and harmless to humans, so you are highly unlikely to get in contact with them by pure chance.

Scientists Drs. Barbara Baehr, Robert Raven and Danilo Harms, affiliated with Queensland Museum and the University of Hamburg, themselves, had to stay alert and wait for the low tide at the coastline of Australia’s “Sunshine State” of Queensland, in order to spot and collect the several-millimetre spider now known as the Bob Marley’s intertidal spider (or Desis bobmarleyi if you stumble upon it in the academic books).

Fans of the legendary reggae musician, the biologists were quick to link the emergence of the arachnid to a favourite song – “High Tide or Low Tide” – and its underlying message about love and friendship through all struggles of life.

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Check out our blog post on Desis bobmarleyi or go read the full study appearing in the open access Evolutionary Systematics and its first issue published since the journal joined Pensoft last December.

 

  • Palau president’s colonial anemone (Antipathozoanthus remengesaui)

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Yes, the species in the picture is an animal living in the sea, even though Anemone is also a genus of flowering plants growing on the ground. Confused? In fact, the two have nothing to do with each other, apart from their ‘flowery’ appearance.

While researchers from the University of the Ryukyus, Kagoshima University, Japan and the Palau International Coral Reef Center were studying the sea anemones living on top of black coral colonies in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, they discovered a total of three new lovely species (allegedly, even more!), where one, Antipathozoanthus obscurus, was spectacular with its preference for hiding in the narrow reef cracks, rather than ‘perching’ proudly on corals.

Amazed by the quantity of yet to be explored biodiversity at the studied localities, including the island country of Palau, the scientists took the occasion to say Thank you to Palau’s President Tommy Remengesau for his nation’s support.

By naming one of the new species A. remengesaui, the scientists also pay tribute to the politician’s vision on nature conservation which has already placed Palau “at the forefront of marine conservation”, as noted by senior author Dr. James Reimer.

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Find more about the new anemones from our blog post or check out the full study openly accessible in ZooKeys.

 

  • The ‘living fossil’ octocoral (Nanipora kamurai)

living fossil

Dubbed ‘living fossil’ for having much more in common with extinct species than it has with its ‘living’ relatives, this octocoral discovered in Okinawa, Japan, comes to show that sometimes it’s staying calm and still on the (shallow reef) surface that takes you places.

Here, the extraordinary, in modern sense, octocoral species landed a spot among the ten most astounding marine species of the decade.

The ‘living fossil’ resembles the extraordinary blue corals, which are said to have been widely distributed around the globe during the Cretaceous period. Much like its ancestors, it sports a hard skeleton of calcium-carbonate, explain graduate student Yu Miyazaki and associate professor Dr James Davis Reimer, University of the Ryukyus.

Planning a trip to Okinawa? Keep an eye open, as this unusual species prefers depths of less than a meter, which is once again quite the contrary to the habitats picked by its contemporaries.

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Check out our blog post on the ‘living fossil’ octocoral and find the study in our open access journal ZooKeys.