A total of five specimens of sand crab, Jonas kalpakkamensis Barathkumar, Das & Satpathy, 2016 were recorded for the first time from the Western Indian Ocean. The sand crab specimens were collected from the bycatch of the commercial demersal trawler targeting crustaceans at a depth of 15–50 m operated along the western region of the Gujarat coastal waters. The collected specimen consists of 3 males and 2 females and it was identified by comparing with holotype and paratype specimens. Previously, J. kalpakkamensis was reported from the Eastern Indian Ocean in the Bay of Bengal region but there is no report or distribution of this sand crab in the Western Indian Ocean. The detailed taxonomic diagnostic character of the sand crab, J. kalpakkamensis and the key for all species under the genus Jonas reported globally is provided in the current study.

Calyptogena gallardoi is a recently described species of vesicomyid clam associated to the extensive gas-hydrate field reported for the Chilean margin along 35°S to 45°S. Enzymatic analysis in foot, gill and abductor muscle tissues of C. gallardoi collected in central-south Chile (~36°21′S 73°44′W), show high activities for malate dehydrogenase (MDH), strombine dehydrogenase (STRDH) and alanopine dehydrogenase (ALPDH) and a low activity of citrate synthase (CS) and ETS (electron transport system). Positive significant correlations (log–log scale) were found between enzymatic activities involved in anaerobic metabolism (MDH versus LDH and ALPDH versus STRDH), as well as between CS and opines dehydrogenases. The ratio MDH/LDH or any other opine dehydrogenase assayed was >> 1 in all tissues analysed. These results indicate that C. gallardoi is highly adapted to the harsh anaerobic conditions of marine chemosynthesis-based communities inhabiting a reduced environment.

By the death at the age of 84 of Mr William H. Searle there passed away, on 6 April i960, one who had served the Laboratory longer than anyone else and who, during his 63 years as fisherman-collector, had installed himself in the affections of countless biologists the world over. From December 1895 until his retirement on 30 September 1958 his assiduous and unwearied devotion to his collecting duties, year in and year out whatever the weather, on the shore or in his boats, earned him the lasting gratitude of all those innumerable research workers, teachers and students who relied on ‘Bill’ to procure living material for their researches or studies. He, more than anyone else, knew where the animals were to be found, how to capture them without damage and how to ensure their safe arrival at the Laboratory hours later. More than one student who had been collecting on the shore alongside Bill has later been astonished to observe the large and varied assortment of creatures emerging alive and kicking from one small and tightly packed basket. He had a keen eye for the little things—Gromia, praniza larvae and the like, from the rock crevices he split open with his crow-bar. These he would carefully transfer from silted rock surface to honey jar on the point of his pocket-knife. He knew well their scientific names, though foreigners would often have difficulty in recognizing them when pronounced with a strong Devonshire accent. It was usually the old names current during his youth that he knew, and he was not alone in deploring the activities of systematists in so frequently changing and re-changing so many of them.

In contrast to the situation found in the bivalves Barnea Candida and Spisula solidissima prophase arrested oocytes of Ruditapes philippinarum cannot be fertilized when extracted from the ovary. They must first undergo germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD) under the influence of the neurohormone serotonin (5-HT) which drives them to a second block occurring in metaphase of the first maturation division. We used Fluo-3 to investigate the possibility that calcium was involved as a second messenger in controlling this first step in meiosis reinitiation. Our data showed that, in addition to 5-HT, ionophore, thapsigargin and the weak bases ammonia and procaine could induce prophase-arrested oocytes of Ruditapes to resume meiosis.