Betty Batham, born in Dunedin in 1917, had studied sea anemones for her doctorate at Cambridge University, and was keen to examine these local examples. She collected more specimens over the next few years and decided after some investigation that they were not a species she could identify herself. So she bundled them up and posted them to another anemone expert: Charles Cutress, in Washington DC.
Known as "Chuck", Cutress was an assistant curator at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, who was already a world expert on anemones. From the sounds of it, he was a passionate expert. His obituary stated: "Chuck had a mind that retained data to a remarkable extent, and he was able to discuss classification and natural history of sea anemones at length and in detail with any who cared (or dared) to tap that resource".
He examined the Otago Harbour specimens carefully and decided they were a new species, but more than that, a new genus! They really were considerably different from any known anemone. He called the new species Habrosanthus bathamae. Habrosanthus means "delicate flower" in Greek; there are no other species in that genus. The species name honours its collector, Betty Batham, and Chuck particularly noted that the quantity and preservation of the specimens he received was exemplary.
In 1960, Dr Batham presented the species description on his behalf to the Otago Branch of the Royal Society, and a few months later it was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society of NZ. That’s how we know all about its history, because a collector and a taxonomist worked together to find it, identify it and describe it thoroughly.
A taxonomist looks at specimens and figures out what species they belong to. If they don’t belong to anything known, she or he formally names and describes them and publishes that description. It’s not exactly riveting reading, but it contains everything you could ever want to know — what it looks like, how big it is, where it lives and who it’s related to. Back in Betty and Chuck’s time, we could only really look at specimens to classify them, using microscopes and various tissue-preparation techniques. Nowadays we can sequence genes and get a clearer picture. But even though genetics has become very powerful indeed, we still need taxonomists to identify and classify life — because if we don’t know who we are dealing with, nothing else works. In our daily lives, names of people are important. In biology, it’s species’ names that matter.
So what is Habrosanthus bathamae? A medium-sized sea anemone (about 5cm tall) with a smooth orange column holding up rows and rows of white tentacles arranged in a circle — up to 192 have been counted. They are usually found attached to rocks or shells, from lowest low tide to about a metre deep. When the animal is feeding, the white tentacles extend out into the water, looking to catch small prey such as shrimps. If it is disturbed, it curls in on itself to become a small orange ball. This habit may account for a common name that has arisen — the apricot anemone. Unfortunately, that common name has been used for another New Zealand species, which is also pale orange but has white stripes along the column.
You may think that anemones are sessile, attached to one place. But in fact they can glide along slowly on their bases. Habrosanthus anemones have male and female individuals who produce eggs and sperm for sexual reproduction. But they can also reproduce asexually, by something called "basal laceration". When they are gliding along, bits of the base get caught on the rocks and tear off — new anemones can grow from these fragments.
For a long time this lovely anemone was believed to be found only in Otago, but more recently they have been identified from the coasts of Wellington and Invercargill. It’s still our own anemone, though, because the type specimen, the one collected by Betty and described by Chuck, the one that defines its species, is from Otago Harbour. It sits in a jar in a cupboard in Washington DC, pickled in alcohol, with catalogue number USNM 51545, waiting for any scientist who needs it.
Abby Smith is a professor of marine science at the University of Otago. Each week in this column, one of a panel of writers addresses issues of sustainability.
