Finding 'yeti' and other creatures in the sea

For some years now, an international group of scientists has been going where no man has gone before to search out new oceanic critters and give them names. This enormous effort, undertaken by the Census of Marine Life, has been adding about 1,400 new species each year and has just launched a World Register of Marine Species, which has the appropriate acronym, WoRMS.

Rather than going for the glamour of discovering a new and majestic baleen whale, or abundant species of fish that will feed the world's poor, these scientists have mostly turned up yet-to-be-named worms, and snails, sponges, and tiny crustaceans. Scientists swear it can be fun to be paid to go on these research cruises, but much of their discoveries remain arcane. Mostly, they toil in relative obscurity.

Take this hairy-armed crab for instance. It was one of the more fun critters to be highlighted by the Census of Marine Life as part of its announcement that it was half-way toward its goal of assigning or validating the names of about 230,000 marine species by 2010. This little guy was sucked up by a "slurp gun" on the deep-sea submersible Alvin on the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge in the Southern Ocean, from a depth of about 7,300 feet. It was given the proper name Kiwa hirsuta, after the goddess of shellfish in Polynesian mythology. But scientists have also affixed a nickname — the "yeti crab" — because of its hairy appearance.

Not a bad attention-getting effort, rating articles in the scientific press and even some short stories in mainstream newspapers. It's not every day, after all, that reputable scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute or other august institutions tell the world they found Yeti — from the deep.

But marine scientists might take a cue from a terrestrial researcher who has hit the big time in finding and naming eight-legged critters on land. Biologist Jason Bond of Eastern Carolina University has apparently agreed, after considerable on-the-air badgering, to name a trapdoor spider after television comedian Stephen Colbert from "The Colbert Report."

Could a deep-sea worm be far behind?

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Photo: Yeti crab. Credit: Census of Marine Life

Comments

[christy nelson]

Hirsuta MEANS hairy. This cute article is way short on facts. For instance, how big is kiwa hirsuta? Deep sea worms of great interest have already been found...almost certainly by Alvin.

[Springer]

As an ecologist I must say that Mr. Weiss's ignorance about both the process of science and the state of the natural world, captured in the article's second paragraph, are simultaneously laughable and troubling.
1. To suggest that there is yet some variety of fish unknown to science but readily accessible and present at an abundance capable of feeding the world’s poor is inane. If you think that a handful of underfunded scientists are more likely to discover a new harvestable species than the multinational fishing fleets whose nets and baited hooks reach into every bay and inlet and to the deepest depths of the every ocean, you’re deluded. Marine fisheries worldwide are crashing because of overexploitation of nearly every fish stock we’ve ever discovered. The bounty of the sea is not limitless, and sadly, the best way forward is to conserve what we have rather than manage our resources horribly and then blame scientists for not having the silver bullet.
2. So these tiny, “obscure” worms, snails, and sponges are far less ecologically important than large baleen whales based on what, your personal aesthetic preference for the likes of Flipper or Shamu? Good God man, if you’re going to write about science and be so dismissive figure out what the hell you’re talking about! These scientists are trying to understand the process and mechanisms that create, maintain, and distribute biodiversity. This is one of the fundamental objectives of ecology. And while labeling this practice as “arcane” you suggest that searching for a new whale species and finding a new fishery to save the world hungry are somehow on par with each other? Huh???

You clearly have rather high expectation for scientists, but don’t forget that we have some expectations for journalism as well. That your editor thought this piece worth disseminating to the public in spite of its snarky tone and minimal information content is sad. I must tell you that this sort of fluff is the journalistic equivalent of the bottom dwelling snails and worms you so deride. I wish I hadn’t dredged it up.