ALT Dan Rokhsar and Darrin wrote most of the first draft of the text, and Oleg Simakov and Dan laid the foundation for looking at these conserved blocks with their work on Ancestral Linkage Groups (ALGs). Darrin and I explored ways to visualize and interpret the results.

ALT 24 specimens of 19 species of pelagic snails, including heteropods, gymnosome and thecosome pteropods, a pseudothecosome, and a nudibranch. Mostly collected by hand during blue-water scuba dives off Baja California, Mexico.

ALT Deep-sea cirrate octopus Cirrothauma from 2700 meters depth. Photo: S. Haddock ©MBARI 2011

ALT Frame from a video of the deep-sea scyphomedusa (jellyfish) Periphylla luminescing.

ALT Aristostomias dragonfish photographed aboard a ship with its head and jaw still attached. Most pictures you find will have the jaw dangling open and the head barely attached by the spine. Two photophores below its eye give it the ability to flash green light (warning) or red light (night-vision to hunt prey). The skin has been found to be among the blackest of materials — giving me an excuse for the underexposed appearance (See Johnsen and Osborn papers.) This photo is unfortunately also of a dead specimen—the eye should be black and not milky white—but otherwise in good condition.

ALT URM encouraged to apply! Deadline: November 30th. Research projects should be your original ideas, but applications without prior contact with a sponsor are unlikely to get as much support.