The Discovery Collection- Cephalopods

I spent this afternoon with Sarah at the NOC, cataloguing the cephalopods. Cephalopods include squids and octopodi, and are by far my favourite group of organisms.There is such a wide variety of physical features, such as the unevenly sized eyes of cock-eyed squids and the photophores of the umbrella and firefly squids.

I don't think I've posted a photograph of the room yet- this is where all the specimens are stored.

The dots on this squid are photophores. They are light emitting organs and they give it its nickname, the jewel squid. Below is a photo of a live umbrella squid with the photophores lit up:

We found these little squids in a near-impossible to open tub. There were about 50 specimens in the tub altogether! When we handled them, they felt quite rubbery and odd.

This giant spider crab was contained in a tub with a 40cm diameter. Its leg span is therefore about 80cm. Huge.

 These specimens are flying squid.

Another flying squid!

Cataloguing the deep sea

Today I had the fortune of cataloguing deep sea specimens from the Discovery collection for Dr Tammy Horton, one of the world's leading amphipod experts. I didn't think I'd be saying that a year ago! I feel incredibly lucky to have these opportunities virtually on my door step, and I like switching off while writing out new labels for specimens such as Centromedon zoe (a species which Dr Horton named and first described). It also not only improves your taxonomy but vastly improves your ability to read bad handwriting.

Amphipods (derived from the Greek word for 'different' and the Latin, poda, for 'foot') are an order malacostracan crustacea. They look like the sand hoppers Talitrus saltator you find on the beach when the tide is about halfway out and can vary in size from mere millimetres in length to the largest recorded of 28cm (found at a depth of 5,300m in the Pacific ocean). Their main characteristic is the absence of a carapace, which is the head 'plate' you see in lobsters.

This is what I used to imagine being a 'proper' scientist would involve, and to actually be able to do this makes me feel both nerdy (in a good way, of course) and lucky. The specimens were kept in jars and we were given the task of copying their labels (which were often faded or written in dreadful handwriting) into a notebook as a record of the specimens kept at the NOC Discovery collection.

This small amphipod was actually one of the largest I handled today. It was one of my favourites due to its larger size enabling me to see most of its features. It still feels strange reading a label and realising that the specimen is older than me.

I also got to write out the labels for various hydrozoa and hydroids. 

I may have found an opportunity to volunteer in the live aquarium lab at the NOC, and if I am able to I will definitely post some more photos because it holds one of the oldest captive lobsters in Britain (maybe even Europe). We were taken to the lab during a tour of the NOC on the open day last year and it looked like an interesting place to work and study.

Hopefully the next time I post, I will have heard back about the lobster tagging placement. I'm doing a VHF radio course this weekend as part of the requirements for it, so I hope that goes well. I also had an exam this week and a load of coursework deadlines so it has been a bit stressful but it turns out I got a 2:1 in the exam, so silver linings and such.