It appears that a major blank in
the evolution of the lobster has fallen into place. A bit of luck and plenty of other data has
given us an obvious transition specimen.
It is all a reminder that we are living through a golden age for all
branches of biology and the secrets of every major species is now under assault. The next great wave after this will be the
restoration of a wide range of extinct species.
That we should know this about
the lobster is delightful. That the
lobster is well on the way to been a sea food staple through effective
husbandry is also fitting.
By SEAN MCCRACKEN
Friday, 9:01 PM
(AP)
The phrase "lobster missing link" might be a little bit
misleading.
What Dale Tshudy's research helped uncover wasn't a small, clawed
Sasquatch patrolling the Atlantic coast of Maine
Tshudy, a geosciences professor at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
and a widely regarded expert in crustacean fossils, has spent the past couple
of years filling in a large blank in the evolution of lobsters.
"It's months of long days," Tshudy said. "But I enjoy
maintaining and improving the database we all work from."
By studying roughly 50-million-year-old fossils found off the coast of
Steeple Bay, England
The new species fills in numerous gaps in what in now known about the
lobster genus Thaumastocheles.
This particular group of lobsters isn't what you'd expect to see on
your dinner plate. They reside in the deep waters of places like the Sea of
Japan or the Caribbean and are rarely
encountered by humans.
Tshudy said they're most easily recognized by their long, slender claws
and a "bulb-shaped" palm, which looks very little like the fat,
club-like claws of Maine
It was those unique appendages that helped Tshudy know he was dealing
with something significant when he got an e-mail from an amateur fossil
collector in 2008.
"These are so distinctive," Tshudy said. "They don't
look like any other lobster. I could tell by a simple black-and-white
photograph."
That e-mail was from British fossil collector Jeff Saward, who is a
world-renowned expert in mazes and labyrinths.
Saward had found Tshudy by searching his work online, and the two would
end up spending the next two years e-mailing back and forth about the
discovery.
"It took five minutes to say, 'Wow, this is something that we
should develop,'" Tshudy said. "Everything just fell into
place."
After the original correspondence, Saward shipped the fossils, which
Tshudy said were "exquisitely preserved," to the U.S.
Tshudy said the new species fills the gap of the fossil record
virtually perfectly. It represents a midway point in the physical
transformation from already discovered extinct ancestors and present-day
descendants.
He was able to discern the new species lived in the time between and at
a depth somewhere between its deep-dwelling descendants and shallow-water
ancestors.
Tshudy is currently putting the finishing touches on a scholarly paper
on the new species that was co-authored by Saward.
Tshudy said it'd be too early to reveal the name of the new species,
but he said that naming protocols often use Latin descriptions of distinctive
features or where it was found.
In the case of a species studied by some of his former colleagues from Kent State
University
Tshudy said he's classified about 5 or 6 species throughout his career,
including some others he's working on right now, and he even worked to define
larger groups like genera and families.
He tries to incorporate his research into his courses, often bringing
fossils shipped from overseas or museums like the Smithsonian Institution into
class.
"If I weren't doing this, I'd get stale in a hurry," Tshudy
said. "I couldn't just teach the same class year after year. I have to be
excited personally about something."
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