June, 1999 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 2 
18 JUNE MEETING 
Secretary Megan Lilly was the OIC for this 
meeting, the President and Vice-President 
being unable to join us. She reminded 
attendees of the next two upcoming SCAMIT 
meetings - 5 July, a meeting with Michel 
Hendrickx regarding Crustacea at LACMNH 
and 12 July a B’98 problem polychaete 
meeting probably at LACMNH. The floor was 
then given to Don Cadien who reminded 
attendees of the upcoming B’98 
intercalibration cruise on 29 June hosted by 
CSDLAC. Don also brought up a query he’d 
seen on the Crustacea list server by Dr. Judith 
Weiss on how to successfully tether glass 
shrimp out in the field. Dr. Weiss had tried 
numerous techniques and all had failed. There 
has subsequently been a flood of helpful 
comments and suggestions from folks with 
experience in shrimp bondage. If you have a 
need for this type of experimental deployment 
consult the archives on this thread [http:// 
www.vims.edu/~jeff/archive.htm]. 
Eric Hochberg then made a suggestion for an 
upcoming newsletter. With his help we will be 
following the Oregon State University (OSU) 
benthic collections of retiring Dr. Andrew 
Carey, which have been distributed to several 
west coast institutions. The collections have 
been split between Cal Academy, SBMNH, and 
LACMNH. Dr. Hochberg has a list of which 
taxa went to which institutions. Much of the 
material is deep water in its origin. Although 
each institution will probably make a list of the 
materials it has received, SCAMIT will provide 
a list of the entire distribution. The entire 
polychaete collection now resides at the 
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles along 
with collections of most Crustacea, gastropods, 
and echinoderms. Smaller phyla groups have 
been split between the other two institutions. 
Also obtained by LACM were some of Dr. 
Carey’s unsorted samples. Most of these 
animals are from deep water off Oregon 
(Cascadia Abyssal Plain), Alaska, and the 
Bering and Chukchi Seas. 
With the business aspect of the meeting 
completed, John Ljubenkov plunged into the 
Cnidaria. He started by discussing the 
historical assumption that hydrozoan taxa 
could be separated on the basis of whether or 
not medusae were generated during an animal’s 
life cycle. He feels, along with a number of 
other workers, that this is an incorrect 
assumption. Medusa retention is an adaptation 
to keep larvae close to the adult in areas where 
they would otherwise be lost to sub-optimal or 
unacceptable habitat. It has occurred repeatedly 
in many lineages (is homoplaseous), and 
should not be used as a character in either a 
phenetic or cladistic analysis. One genus can 
have members with freely liberated swimming 
medusae, medusae which develop sessilely on 
the adult and drop off to metamorphose nearby, 
and total suppression of the medusoid 
generation. A rather animated discussion 
ensued on the whole concept of poecilogony 
and the ability of animals to modify their 
reproductive modes to meet various ecological/ 
environmental pressures. 
John then referred to a paper by Peterson 
(1990) which discussed the differences 
between Ectopleura and Tubularia. According 
to this paper, everything we’re getting here on 
the West Coast is now in the genus Ectopleura. 
Although Tubularia is still a valid taxon, none 
of the species we encounter belong to it. These 
generic categories are not viewed identically 
by all authors, however. The generic 
definitions of Calder & Vervoort (1998) 
parallel, but do not completely overlap those of 
Peterson. 
We also have considerable difficulty with 
specific separation within the west coast 
representatives of the genus. Peterson corrects 
the earlier usages of Fraser, who confused the 
species, and has confused us in turn. 
A request was then put forth by Eric Hochberg 
for people to send him specimens of 
Virgularia,Acanthoptilum, and Stylatula. He 
would appreciate, when possible, if people 
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