Lunacies

For several centuries now, Earth’s only natural satellite has been associated with odd or unusual behavior. Lunatics were people we would describe today as mentally ill, who behaved in ways that couldn’t be predicted and might be dangerous. The erratic behaviors were attributed to the vague condition of lunacy. These words are derived from the Latin luna, which means ‘moon’. The cycles of the moon have long been thought to influence human behavior as well; hence such legends as the werewolf.

We do know that the moon indeed has a very strong influence on aspects of many organisms, primarily through the tides. For example, reproduction in many marine animals is timed to coincide with a particular point in the tidal cycle. Grunion (Leuresthes tenuis, small, silver, finger-shaped fishes) run themselves up onto California beaches at night to spawn following the full and new moon high tides in the early summer months. Corals in the Great Barrier Reef spawn together in the handful of nights after the full moon in November. Animals such as these, which reproduce via broadcast spawning, are the ones most likely to benefit from synchronized spawning; after all, there is no point in spawning if you’re the only one doing it. Invertebrates don’t have watches or calendars; they keep time by sensing the natural cycles of sun and moon. The moon’s strong effect on the tides is a signal that all marine creatures can sense and use to coordinate spawning, increasing the probability of successful fertilization for all.

Last night, Wednesday 6 September 2017, the moon was full. Yesterday at the lab, I noticed that  the large Anthopleura sola anemones living in the corner of my table had spawned.

That diffuse grayish stuff in the right-hand side of the photo is a pile of sperm. I looked at a sample under the microscope, just to be sure. By this time they had been sitting at the bottom of the table for several hours and most of them were dead. But they were definitely sperm:

Whenever I see something unusual like this my first impulse is to see if it’s happening anywhere else at the lab. So I started poking around. The aquarists at the Seymour Center told me that some of their big anemones had spawned in the past couple of days; however, since they clean and vacuum the tanks every day all evidence was long gone.

Fortunately there are several A. sola anemones in other labs that aren’t cleaned as regularly as the public viewing areas. One of the animals in the lab next door to where I have my table had also spawned. . .

. . . and this one is a female! What looks like a pile of fine dust is actually a pile of eggs.

And the eggs are really cool. See those spines? They are called cytospines and apparently deter predation. Other species in the genus Anthopleura (A. elegantissima and A. xanthogrammica) are known to have spiny eggs, so it appears that this is a shared feature. Now, if only I could get my hands on eggs of the fourth congeneric species–A. artemisia, the moonglow anemone–that occurs in our area, I’d know for certain, at least for California species. I examined the eggs under higher magnification, but due to their opacity I couldn’t tell if the had been fertilized. Most appeared to be solid single undivided cells; they could, however, be multicellular embryos.

All told, of the anemones that had obviously spawned, 1 was female and 4 were male. I sucked up some of the eggs and put them in a beaker of filtered seawater. I doubt that anything will happen, but I may be in for a pleasant surprise when I check on them tomorrow.