November, 1999 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 7 
B’98 samples from the Northern Channel 
Islands have exposed us to animals we don’t 
normally see in our monitoring. Among these 
are small apseudid tanaids. Menzies covered 
them well at the specific level in his 
monograph on the group in our area (Menzies, 
1953). A host of changes have taken place 
since 1953 in generic and higher rank apseudid 
taxa. These are summarized by Gutu (1996), 
who provides a list of the taxa, and a key to 
families and genera worldwide. 
Dr. Mihai Bacescu of Roumania was another 
major crustacean worker lost to us this year. 
Among his publications are two major 
contributions I have finally obtained, the 
Cumacea sections of the Crustaceorum 
Catalogus (Bacescu 1988 & 1992). For 
crustacean workers these compendia, which list 
taxa, authorship, type localities, and 
distribution (with citations of virtually all 
records in the literature of every species) form 
an irreplaceable resource. Other sections 
dealing with tanaids (by Sieg) and caprellids 
(by McCain & Steinberg) are also available. 
Unfortunately, neither of the Bacescu volumes 
provides a bibliography to assist with finding 
the records listed in the Catalogus, although 
each entry does bear an abbreviated citation 
listing. Unidentified species reported in the 
literature are included, but not provisional 
names per SCAMIT usages. Their inclusion 
appears to be for distributional completeness, 
and perhaps a sign that additional unnamed 
species are present in the reported area. 
Secondary distillations of the included 
information which provide lists of taxa 
reported by geographic area or bathymetry are 
also absent. 
MORE ON MYTILUS 
Member Dr. Jim Carlton sent the following 
comments in regard to mention in the last NL 
of concerns with identification of the Mytilus 
species found in our shallow water samples. 
“Re: “ Mytilus californianus can be separated 
from the other two based on its surface 
ribbing”. Actually, I would not rely on surface 
sculpture all of the time, as this can vary with 
age and habitat. Better perhaps is to use 
internal muscle scars (see Light’s Manual, 3rd 
ed., 1975, p. 553, plate 125, figs. 5B vs. fig. 7). 
Re: Mytilus trossulus vs. M. galloprovincialis : 
Two thoughts here: First, M. trossulus is rare- 
to-nonexistent generally in southern California, 
and thus of the tross-gallo-edulis guild, gallo 
should be the mussel one generally collects in 
southern California. This isn’t to say that one 
should identify a species by geography, but this 
is simply a “heads up” — that is, if M. 
trossulus *does* occur in southern California 
today, this is important news. See the paper by 
Jon Geller in the June 1999 issue of 
Conservation Biology (J. B. Geller, 1999. 
Decline of a native mussel masked by sibling 
species invasion. CB 13(3): 661-664) 
documenting the decline of M. trossulus in 
southern California, most likely at the “hands” 
of the M. gallo invasion. Second, as far as I 
know, there are no reliable external or internal 
morphocharacters that will distinguish 
trossulus from galloprovincialis from edulis : 
they are now defined as genospecies, not 
morphospecies. Without genetic confirmation, 
one cannot know, unfortunately and 
frustratingly, which mussel one has in hand.” 
25 OCTOBER MEETING MINUTES 
The meeting was held in the Worm Lab at the 
Los Angeles County Natural History Museum. 
Before starting the business meeting, we 
viewed a video tape entitled “Life in the Deep” 
brought in by Leslie Harris. She purchased it 
at the Monterey Bay Aquarium while there the 
previous week. The video had some excellent 
footage of animals that live in the depths of 
Monterey Canyon. We saw animals from the 
mid-water habitat (the largest habitat on earth), 
the canyon walls, and the sea floor. Watching 
these beautiful and amazing life forms in their 
natural habitats was a nice way to start out. 
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