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Undergraduate Research on Sea Spiders: Identifying and Illustrating New Species from Monterey Bay, California

Description:

For my project, I ended up doing undergraduate research on sea spiders with Dr. Bonnie Bain, who is a professor here on campus that specializes on working on sea spiders. Sea spiders are a group of marine invertebrates that are found in virtually all around the world’s oceans from along coastlines to the forever pitch-dark abyss. Like their names suggests, their appearance is extremely similar to that of the typical spider, but they are distinguished by many characteristics such as the loss of lungs as well as the evolution of a proboscis. They are placed within the phylum Chelicerata, which includes everything from spiders, scorpions, mites, and horseshoe crabs.

For my project, I focused on illustrating, describing, and comparing 4 different specimens received from the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 3 of these specimens were collected off the coast of California near Monterey. Since these specimens belong to the rare Subgenus Bathypallenopsis, we thought they could potentially belong to a new species of sea spider. After drawing each specimen and comparing them to each other and to other known Bathypallenopsis species, we determined we had discovered 2 new species of sea spider. We are still figuring out names for these two species, but their names will likely reflect their uniquely long spines found on their legs which resemble feathers. The last part of my project involved illustrating an old (collected in the 1800s) lectotype specimen of Collossendeis colossea--a very large type of sea spider commonly found around the Atlantic. We illustrated this specimen because there is a need to separate and distinguish Collossendeis species as this genus is typically used as a “throw away” genus where many other species of this genus are called C. colossea out of convenience.

Inspiration:

Inspiration for my project stems primarily from my love for the natural world and learning more about the many animals and plants that exist here on Earth. This is a passion that has never really left me and is for this reason that I am pursuing a Biology degree. When I heard that my friend was doing undergraduate research on sea spiders, I was intrigued as I thought this would be a good chance for me to get some experience doing real research. I also figured that this would be a perfect project for EDGE and for this reason sought to work with Dr. Bonnie Bain.

Challenges:

The majority of the challenges encountered during this project was first and foremost to ensure that I stayed on track working on the illustrations. Working on the illustrations took significantly more time to work on than I had originally planned and I therefore had to start planning things accordingly to accomodate for increased times. For this reason, I found that my original goal of doing 6 drawings was too ambitious. Unlike typical drawings, I had to not only draw them, but properly position the specimens under a microscope in order to illustrate them. I also had to accommodate and change the way I approached drawing the sea spiders as at the beginning, I had no real method to my illustrations and didn’t exactly know what features I needed to emphasize or draw to adequately portray each specimen.

Benefits:

My mentor, Dr. Bonnie Bain definitely did benefit from this project as I helped her to illustrate 4 more specimens that had been sitting on the shelf. I also helped accelerate progress in finding and describing how 3 of these specimens were 2 new species. These illustrations will be used in a later research paper that will discuss our results and our findings.

For me, I definitely have benefited from this whole experience as I’ve learned how to focus on drawing unique features of species as well as how to accelerate the process of illustrating them. Additionally, I have gained experience in a lab setting, which will look really good especially if I later apply as a wildlife biologist or apply to graduate school. Having Dr. Bonnie Bain as a mentor will greatly enhance my resume. Lastly, my portfolio in general has grown to include scientific illustrations.