Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
Sheril over at The Intersection seems to be confused about what the coolest invertebrate is. She goes so far as to call out PZ about his hyper-infatuation with Cephalopods. Let's face it there is no way an echinoderm, especially a holothurian, can come anywhere near the coolness of a Mollusk. There is a reason why we at DSN have a whole category here dedicated to Cephalopods and not one dedicate to our water-vascularized friends. It's just hard to get excited about a sea cucumber that either feeds on sediment muck or filters muck out of the water column and not much else. Or an organism whose idea of fun is spewing its organs all over you or creating poop trails. Do sea cucumbers do this, or this, or this? I don't think so. If you need more fodder check out this site and see Vermeij discuss how Mollusks are winning the ocean's arms race. Mollusks get both larger and smaller than all the Echinoderms and they are more diverse both in terms of number of species and the ecological niches they fill.
If you don't believe me that Mollusks are cooler than sea cucumbers watch the videos below.
Comments
Segoy, nei?
Echinodermata? Aho!
Cephalopoda!
Posted by: mikeG | March 20, 2008 5:39 PM
Mollusks get both larger and smaller than all the Echinoderms and they are more diverse both in terms of number of species and the ecological niches they fill.
And they can kill you. Not all of them, obviously, but a select few ...
Posted by: Snail | March 20, 2008 5:56 PM
Echinoderms RULE! I studied both asteroids and echinoids for my diss and loved them so much that they are now tattooed on my body. Cephalos are a close second, though.
Posted by: Dr. Whore | March 20, 2008 9:37 PM
I don't think it's a fair comparison with the sea cucumber like that. Echinoderms are cool, but I'll have to say that mollusks are cooler. I got love for all!
Alex
Posted by: Alex L | March 20, 2008 10:11 PM
Just had the pleasure on Monday of having Brad Seibel do a guest lecture on cephalopods -- with a focus on reproduction - for one of my classes. For me, it was pure heaven. What with the brooding squid videos and backstory, metabolic studies, and then the D. gigas egg mass videos. Didn't want the class to end. Awesome!
I don't see any cukes ever coming close to that....
Posted by: Eric | March 20, 2008 10:29 PM
Dr. Whore, I would love to see you invert tats! If you haven't already, submit a photo to Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium.
Posted by: kevin z | March 21, 2008 5:47 AM
Kevin Z,
My tat of a developmental series of the sea urchin (egg to pluteus) on my upper arm is already a part of the Carl's photos.
http://carlzimmer.typepad.com/sciencetattoo/page/5/
I have another series (sea stars) planned for my back once I have the $$.
Posted by: Dr. Whore | March 22, 2008 5:42 PM
Dr. Whore, I remember that one! Its fantastic! I'm waiting for my description of a new species of deep sea shrimp to get published, then I am getting Fig. 2a, a line drawing of the critter we did, tattooed on my leg. My other tats were from my pre-scientist years, although I do have the biohazard symbol on my right arm. Maybe it was an omen.
Posted by: kevin z | March 22, 2008 7:13 PM
Hi boys,
Thanks for fighthing the good fight for cephalopods. I don't even understand how the Echinoderms think they've got an arguement...
Posted by: keely | March 23, 2008 3:09 PM
Now Craig,
You know that was a pretty lame video for team cucke. Let's be fair, there's a heck of a lot of variety to the mighty cucumber... Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sak-OBj4zEU&feature=related
Posted by: Sheril R. Kirshenbaum | March 26, 2008 7:52 AM
hmm... it justs kind of sits there. like a plant. not very exciting *yawn* Is that the best team cuke can do?? ;p
Posted by: kevin z | March 26, 2008 8:27 AM
I'm votin' for the Bivalve Party! :)
Posted by: Dave | April 5, 2008 3:35 PM