296 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — ^PHASE 3 



sciences. Its sustained interest in oceanography has been evidenced by the 

 many oceanographic expeditions in which it has participated and in the con- 

 tinuing related taxonomic activities of its highly specialized staff of scientists. 



Several of the divisions of the Department of Zoology in the Smithsonian's 

 Natural History Museum are particularly active in this field. 



The Division of Marine Invertebrates is concerned with the protozoans or 

 single-celled animals, sponges, hydroids, jellyfishes, sea fans, sea anemones, flat- 

 worms, rotifers, hair worms, round worms, bryozoans or moss animals, feather 

 stars, starfishes, brittle stars, sea urchine, sea cucumbers, segmented marine 

 worms, earthworms, leaches, horseshoe crabs, sea spiders, fairy shrimps, cope- 

 pods, barnacles, wood lice, shrimps, lobsters, crabs, sea squirts, and related forms. 

 Most of these animals live in the sea, but many are found in fresh water. 



A few of the invertebrates that live in the sea, such as the shrimps, lobsters, 

 and crabs, are food resources known to everyone. Numerous less familiar forms, 

 however, play an even more important role in the general economy of the seas, 

 lakes, ponds, and streams. They form the basic food of fishes and other animals 

 which, in turn, are utilized by man in various ways. They are the scavengers that 

 help keep the aquatic environment unpolluted. Several are parasites of animals 

 useful to man or act as intermediate hosts of other parasites that may be harm- 

 ful to man. Others are of great economic importance as fouling organisms 

 on ships hulls and as boring animals destructive to marine structures. Some 

 contribute substantially to the noise level beneath the sea surface and thereby 

 seriously interfere with underwater sound equipment that is becoming increas- 

 ingly important in naval warfare. A knowledge of the somewhat simplified 

 biochemical and physiological processes of invertebrates is often necessary to an 

 understanding of the more complex processes of the higher animals, including 

 man. 



Basic information on the kinds and distribution of these animals, which the 

 Division of Marine Invertebrates attempts to provide, is therefore often a pre- 

 requisite to successful attacks on problems that have a direct bearing on man's 

 welfare and survival. Because of the wide scope of its interests and its exten- 

 sive and comprehensive collections (one of the three largest collections of its 

 kind in the world), the Division acts as an identification center and a clearing- 

 house for marine biological information. The Division has 1,735,501 specimens 

 in its reference collection. These collections must be used in the identification 

 and proper classification of materials brought in as a result of oceanographic 

 research. 



The scientific work of the Division, both field work and the preparation of 

 reports and monographs for publication, is necessarily restricted in scope be- 

 cause the limited staff cannot cover all of the diverse groups under its jurisdic- 

 tion. Frequently the published research of the Division results from requests 

 for information of a specific character from other Government and private 

 agencies and institutions. Only occasionally are time and personnel available 

 for the revisions and monographs that have much more far-reaching importance. 

 Considerable time of the professional staff is also devoted to the evaluation and 

 preliminary editing of manuscripts prepared by collaborating specialists in other 

 institutions and by other persons working on the national collections of marine 

 invertebrates. 



The Division of Fishes deals with the origin, distribution, classification, nomen- 

 clature, and relationships of the fishes of the world and with the peculiarities 

 that characterize them. It is concerned with the habits, ecology, variation, 

 developmental history, hybridization, and evolution of both fresh-water and 

 marine fishes and indirectly with the conservation, economic utilization, and 

 fisheries management of commercially valuable, rare and vanishing species. 

 Having the custody of the largest research collection of fishes in the world, the 

 scientific staff identifies and classifies fishes. There are about 40,000 different 

 species of living fishes in the world classified among 47 orders ; these are 

 divided into 638 families. Some of the more important orders are : Branchio- 

 stomoidae (lancelets) ; Petromyzonoidae (lampreys) ; Myinoidae (hagfishes) ; 

 Selachoidae (sharks) ; Lamnoidae (mackerel sharks) ; Squaloidae (dogfish 

 sharks) ; Batoidae (rays) ; Chimacroidae (ratfishes) : Aeipenseroidae (stur- 

 geons) ; Isospendyloidae (salmon and herring) ; Ostariophysoidae (minnows 

 and carp) : Apodoidae (eels) ; Cyprinodontnidae (toothed carps) : Anacanthoidaf 

 (codfishes) ; Percomorphoidae (perch and bass) ; Pleurenecoidae (soles and 

 flounders) ; Plactognathoidae (triggerfishes) ; and Pediculatiformae (angler- 

 fishes). 



