Macrostomorpha taxonomy and phylogeny

Finally once again in lovely Lignano looking for our favourite Macrostomum species. Our well proven improlab is better equipped than ever, and with a crew of seven people (Dita, Caro, Kiyono, Peter Tim, Gregor and Lukas) we will leave no sand grain unturned (well almost).

The Bibione beach is again yielding lots of M. lignano, M. pusillum, M. axi and maybe a new something (more later).

The weather is great, and being here a bit later than usual does not seem to harm neither our own or the worm's condition.

We'll keep you posted.

Lukas

"The large , ventrally disposed mouth, coupled with the highly distensible enteric sac, enables the animal to ingest others almost as large as itself. When in such a gastronomic dilemma, the animal lies quietly, while the large irregular bulk of food is reduced to a convenient size by enzymic action."

From Ferguson, 1939. A monograph of the genus Macrostomum O. Schmidt 1848. Part I, p14

Benny Glasgow from Nettleton, Mississippi has sent us some interesting worms that he collected in the Bear Creek area, near Mobile, Alabama.

It seems to be a representative of the Macrostomum tuba species group, and it is a very welcome addition to our collections (MTP LS 518).

Thanks Benny!

We work under continuous surveillance!

A trinational field excursion, or wormsearch, is presently happening, based in Tvärminne Zoological Station (also known as Tvärminnen eläintieteellinen asema), a former Turbellarian hotspot, when Alexander Luther was its director (1919-1954 35 years!). He produced some of the most astonishing drawings of Macrostomum species (see for instance his 1905 paper in honour of Palmén, who founded the station where we presently amaze ourselves with tiny creatures). He also described numerous species and attracted and taught several renown turbellariologists.

This wormsearch's was organized by Lukas Schärer (CH), and we finally have an expert for "The Rest" of cute worms we always find and admire namelessly (i.e. the Rhabdocoela), Tom Artois (BE). The rest of the crew consists of Bart Tessens (BE), Gregor Schulte (DE), Micha Eichmann (CH) and myself.

You can now find online a fairly complete bibliography of the Macrostomidae (including some papers on Microstomidae and the Dolichomacrostomidae). Most of the over 200 papers are also deposited as PDFs (for more detail see About the Bibliography).