January, 2000 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 9 
celebrate Ray Manning the person with a grand 
party, but we were also gathered as members of 
a Society that would not have been there but 
for him. A great legacy indeed. 
And then there are the research achievements. 
He was Mister Stomatopod! What had been a 
minor cluster of species scattered about a few 
families ended up with almost 500 species, and 
counting, in 4 superfamilies. This came not 
only from taxonomic revision of the old 
literature, but also from new fresh collections 
from around the world. His mastery of mantis 
shrimp was total. It was this mastery that 
immediately attracted one of us (FRS) as a 
graduate student visiting the collections of the 
National Museum in Washington. To know a 
group of animals that well was something to be 
aspired to. This expertise in stomatopods 
seemed all the more amazing as it became 
obvious through the years that it was matched 
by an equally comprehensive expertise in 
reptant decapods. Ray never felt any need to 
apologize for his devotion to alpha-taxonomy. 
For him, species were the basis of everything. 
His scientific achievements were backed up 
with an ample supply of practical, common 
sense, organizational skills. We saw this in the 
foundation of The Crustacean Society. 
However, Ray applied this towards running the 
crustacean section of the National Museum 
and, for many years, in chairing the 
Department of Invertebrates in the 
Smithsonian. Indeed his sense of responsibility 
towards the museum and the fate of its 
collections were strong right up until the end. 
Anyone who has visited the museum or sent 
students have experienced Ray’s dedication to 
the collections. A few months before he died 
one of us (FRS) visited him in Washington. 
And what did he want to talk about? Not his 
own research. Certainly not about his own 
health. Rather, it was the health of the 
Smithsonian collections that concerned him, 
weighted by a sense of despair with museum 
administrators over what he believed was their 
short sightedness. 
Least we convey the false impression that Ray 
Manning was “all work,” we cannot close 
without reference to Ray’s love of life. He 
loved people as much as he loved the animals 
he worked on. He and his wife Lilly developed 
a web of friendships that extended around the 
world. This included the Zoological Museum 
in Copenhagen (ZMUC). Ray always had a 
special connection to Denmark through Lilly, 
whose own roots are in this country. Not only 
the president of the TCS (JTH) but many other 
friends and colleagues in Denmark mourn the 
passing of a great carcinologist and a good 
friend. 
Time spent with Ray was never dull. 
“Heaven” for Ray was a good steak, some 
good bourbon, in a setting of good 
conversation with friends. That all of this 
might get mixed in with a dose of science was 
just so much more spice. It was not the length 
of a life that was important to Ray, it was its 
quality. Indeed, it stands as his final lesson to 
us. 
So while we mourn for one of our founders, 
and share our sense of sadness over Ray’s 
passing with his wife Lilly and their daughters 
and family, there is a lot to remember and 
rejoice about Ray Manning’s life. Truly, we 
are here because of him.” 
Jens T. Hoeg 
President, The Crustacean Society, 2000-2001 
Frederick R Schram 
Organizing Councilor, and Past-President, The 
Crustacean Society, 1986-1987 
[reprinted with the permission of the authors 
from the CrustL list server] 
BIGHT’98 UPDATE 
After seemingly endless meetings to discuss 
the rarer, more outre, and more problematic 
species we encountered in Bight’98 we have 
finally reached the “truth or consequences” 
portion of the infaunal program. On 24 January 
we had our first “conflict resolution” meeting 
to thrash out the differences in identification 
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