I know it’s been way too long since my last update, but just wait till you see all that we’ve had going on and I hope all will be forgiven.

The Shrimp Mafia has disbanded with Ivan and Sammy returning to their respective countries of origin leaving Art to describe new species on his own. But not to worry, Magali Honey (Maggie) is visiting and will be here for a few weeks. She came just in time, I think that by this point the hotel we use has started factoring our visitors into their monthly budget. Here are Machel and Maggie bonding over talk of barnacles and sea cucumbers.

Also during the month of February, prospective grad students came to visit the department. One of the women who came to interview with our (Gustav’s) lab is Christine Ewers. I didn’t capture her on film this time (I was sick, another reason for the lack of posts, do you forgive me yet?) but she has been on a R/V Bellows field trip with us in the past. Here are she and Julie patching up a trawl net.

Another new arrival who is here to stay (at least for a few years) is Hsiu-Chin Lin. The newest member of the team, she is joining us a post-doc. She has a lot of genetic expertise that we are anxious to add to our collective knowledge.

In addition to all the arrivals and departures. We also participated in the 2010 UF Marine Biology Symposium. Many of us presented talks or posters of our various and sundry research interests. My data were a mess and needed a lot of time and attention to polish up enough in time to present at the symposium. Other things that I might have been meaning to do (i.e. posting to this blog) may or may not have fallen to the wayside as a consequence, but I’m sure you understand. At the conference, the cuke team swept the undergraduate awards with Julie, Laura, and J.D. all winning prizes. Here is a glimpse of Julie’s first place presentation with some nice ossicle pictures. Try and soak in the knowledge.

So in addition the the grant-ending other-work-neglecting catch-up to do, we now have our symposium-readiness other-work-neglecting catch-up to do. Sarah has been doing a lot of cataloging and label matching. Here she is shelving a freshly labeled box of something. This is the shelving where we keep the wet (ethanol preserved) collection. It’s not as creepy as the lighting makes it look. You should see the herpetology collection!

Jenna has also been tackling some label matching, but it seems like there’s always someone wanting a Geneious tutorial. We’ve been getting back so much sequence data from the Smithsonian that everyone wants to get to work on building some trees for their study group. One of the latest petitioners is Sea.

Fred has also begun work on his Thailand collection and has spent some time in the range this week sorting through trays of land snails that’s he’s collected to prepare them for cataloging.

Also doing land snail work, Chelsey and John have been working on the many, many (many, many) lots from Madagascar. Chelsey may be employed full time over in the shark range, but she keeps coming back home to Invert Zoo, feeling the pull of the Acavidae and their messy taxonomy, and possibly the snack drawer and its ever-changing bounty.

I’m also pleased to report that I’ve made serious inroads into the desk blockade that has been constructed around me. I would say that things are returning to normal, but I realize that I really have no standard for comparison. What can I say, we’re a happenin’ joint.

🙂 Mandy