Marine invertebrates

Squat lobsters are known for their lengthy eyelashes and come in many different sizes from the mighty Munidopsis aries (90mm carapace length) to some species which have bodies only a few millimetres long.

This year is the 2400th anniversary of the birth of Aristotle, a philosopher and scientist (384 BCE), who among other many great achievements was the first person to describe the structure, ecology, and diversity of sea urchins – way back in the 4th century BC.

A new fully illustrated electronic identification guide, Bountiful Bryozoans, has just been released to help people identify this group of marine creatures in the wild.

An interactive guide to the bryozoans of New Zealand

An interactive guide to the starfish of the Ross Sea

We have reached the end of our sampling program up in the Kermadecs and we’re on our way home

Over the last few days the “dive team” have been recording corals, fishes, urchins and other invertebrates from the shallow waters (0-30m) surrounding Raoul Island to complement the biodiversity records from the deeper ocean collected by the other scientists onboard.

The prickly king crab, Paralomis zealandica, is a member of the family Lithodidae, a mainly deepwater crustacean group that is probably better known by many people for its tasty leg meat.

Like other members of the family Asteriidae, Allostichaster is fissiparous.