DNA and underwater footage reveal two new deep-sea siphonophores

What BBN said about it

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentScientists just named two new deep-sea siphonophores, and they found them in 155 museum jars that were filed under six species.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentWith me is Luis Okonkwo-Mbeki, a retired trawler captain who has pulled up a lot of jelly.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentLuis, did you ever file any of these correctly?

4. LO

   Luis Okonkwo-MbekiNo. I labeled that myself, every one. Well, my deckhand did. Well, I think it was a gull, honestly, because the labels were mostly poop.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentThe team sequenced DNA from an old specimen that had sat in formalin, and that's how they split the species. Did you ever test yours?

6. LO

   Luis Okonkwo-MbekiTest them? I labeled that myself. It said jelly. Then it said jelly, maybe. Then it said ask Doreen, and Doreen quit in ninety-eight.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentOne of the new ones, Bargmannia pyrosa, is fiery red and was filmed at about fifty-six hundred feet down. Somebody had that listed as a different animal.

8. LO

   Luis Okonkwo-MbekiFifty-five hundred feet. We never went that deep. Our net sagged at about forty, and I labeled that myself, deep.

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   Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentMBARI has found twenty-two new siphonophore species in thirty-four years. That's most of a career spent correcting other people's paperwork.

10. LO

    Luis Okonkwo-MbekiRight, and that's the part that stings. I may have shipped a new species to a landfill in two thousand four. I labeled it myself.

11. LO

    Luis Okonkwo-MbekiIt said trash.

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    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentTrash.

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    Kenji Moonfield · Internet & Trends CorrespondentSo the study looked at jars that were labeled wrong, and you've got a mug in your hand that's labeled fish. Rate your own filing.

14. LO

    Luis Okonkwo-MbekiTwo out of ten. And I labeled the mug myself. It says fish. It has held tea, bait and, once, a siphonophore.