February, 2000 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 18, No. 10 
Carol’s specimen reminded me of some 
specimens that I had seen in PT Loma samples. 
I recently found one in a Regional sample 
(IBWC station). The specimen is fairly small, 
4 mm, relative to the 14+ mm adults available 
for comparison. It does not have a spine 
between the insertions of gnathopds 2, but it 
does have a “hump” at this point with a very 
small protuberance at the pinnacle. It turns out 
that the 14 mm C. californica specimens have 
very small spines between gn 2 (especially 
when compared to the rather large spine found 
in C. mendax , for example). So I believe this 
small hump is the pre-cursor to the adult spine. 
Additionally, one of the points we noted at the 
SCAMIT meeting was the acute tip and 
distinctly forward pointing head spine of 
Caprella sp F, which appeared different from 
what we all remembered of C. californica. It 
turns out that of my 5 adult specimens, 4 had 
long dorsally directed head spines (i.e., 
pointing upwards), while one had a forward, 
very acutely tapered head spine, just like this 4 
mm specimen. Other characters of the 
antennae, gnathopods, etc. matched well, 
especially if allowances were made for the 
great difference in size. 
Consequently, without having noted the size of 
Carol’s specimen, I am pretty well convinced 
that her Caprella sp F is simply an immature 
Caprella californica. 
AUSTIN B. WILLIAMS 
The recent death of Dr. Williams was 
mentioned previously in the NL. Dr. Jody 
Martin (NHMLAC) provides below a personal 
reminiscence of him. 
“ Remembering Austin Williams” 
“As a graduate student at the University of 
Southwestern Louisiana, I had my first 
opportunity to visit the USNM / Smithsonian 
crustacean collections back in 1978, along with 
Darryl Felder, my advisor. I was in awe of the 
collection itself, and was looking forward to 
seeing it. But in truth I was actually a bit 
fearful of meeting some of the legends of 
carcinology who worked there. Among them 
was Austin Williams, whose book on the 
decapods of the Carolinas was something of a 
bible to me. How would such a revered worker 
react to the naive questions of a beginning 
student? How would he view an interruption 
of his research time? I vowed to keep a low 
profile, and to speak only when spoken to. My 
fears were unwarranted. Austin immediately 
welcomed us into his lab, canceled meetings 
that he had scheduled for the next several days, 
asked about our research and collection needs, 
showed us projects he was working on at the 
time, and in general did everything possible to 
make us feel at home. I returned to the 
Smithsonian often during the course of my 
graduate career, as a student at USL and later 
as a student at Florida State, and coffee with 
Austin was always one of the highlights. His 
collegial manner and relaxed style made our 
research time more productive, and our visits a 
delight. We would discuss at length the 
problems of the world, the future of the USNM 
collections, the systematics of decapods, and 
anything else that was on our minds. He was 
always interested, always enthusiastic, always 
willing to share his seemingly infinite 
knowledge of decapods. I suppose that the 
phrase “a gentleman and a scholar” is overused 
in our society, and employed sometimes when 
the fit is not perfect. In his case, it was; he was 
always a perfect gentleman, always a first rate 
scientist, always helpful, always willing to put 
your needs before his own. Austin left not only 
a legacy of beautiful work on crustacean 
systematics, but the indelible message that 
kindness and scientific rigor are not mutually 
exclusive. 
He will be missed by all who knew him.” 
Joel W. Martin, Curator of Crustacea 
Research & Collections Branch 
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles 
County 
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