
Crustacean has never been seen away from Lake Merritt, but it's not from Oakland - vector_spaces
https://baynature.org/biodiversity/enigmatica/
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mrob
"Never been seen" in the scientific literature, but if it's from Chile,
presumably somebody there has seen it. Instead of sending an expedition, has
anybody asked people who live near muddy beaches there if they recognize it?

~~~
Gibbon1
You would think there would be a high school biology teacher in Chile who
would be happy to press gang some students into a field trip to find the
answer.

~~~
reaperducer
I wonder how long it would take a high school biology class to scour 2,700
miles of largely remote Chilean coastline for an animal less than half an inch
long?

Probably just a few hundred years, right?

~~~
pvaldes
Not so much as you think. Biologists are trained for many years to know where
to look for. There are lots of species of Amphipods, but obviously you can
discard most species and quickly delimit it to family level if you have a
microscope.

In this case you need to be able to recognise only one species that is named
and described and the genus can be assured looking at the third segment of the
peduncle in the first antenna, eyes medium, gnathopod 1 fully subchelate, etc,
etc.

Scholars should focuse in your studies, and let this kind of work for
professionals, obviously. Amphipod specimens need to be dissected for
identification, and is too easy to misplace, mistake or miss important facts,
distroying unique valuable specimens for nothing.

~~~
reaperducer
_Biologists are trained for many years to know where to look for._

But high school students aren't.

~~~
icebraining
High school students can be guided.

~~~
pvaldes
I had identified amphipods after its remains (there was two or three legs,
half a head, part of the coxas and so), and is feasible, but not easy. Inside
the chilean complex of this species would be even more dificult. High school
students can't really do it, and local fishermen do not have this knowledge or
the tools to adquire it.

I can think only in one reason to not contact the chilean biologists, or visit
Chile, and is a language barrier, easy to overcome since we have google
translate and similar tools.

On the other hand, amphipods are really easy to keep in aquariums for many
months. Females incubate its eggs under the legs in a sort of pouches
(kangaroo style) and there is often a clear and obvious sexual dimorphism, so
their reproductive life is not dificult to study at all. You can easily
observe the breeding behaviour, clutch size, embriology, hatching, season and
number of generations by year. Why they didn't it in all of those years is a
mystery to me. (Shrug) maybe fear that the species would be disclosed as
belonging to a yet described species and became a synonym?.

~~~
batbomb
Many academic Chileans speak conversational english, either most speak basic
english.

Most business performed in multi-nationals in "Sanhattan" (Las
Condes/Providencia), for example, is conducted in English.

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tomrod
In today's world, there is no reason information barriers can't be overcome.
This shouldn't even need a kickstarter for the initial checks.

Anyone from Chile here? New Zealand?

Anyone here work with a DNA sequencing machine and can get some pro bono time
with it?

~~~
thaumasiotes
As ricardobeat points out, this isn't a difficult barrier to overcome now and
hasn't been at any point since the guy started inquiring about it. The
"puzzle" remains because it's neither important nor interesting, not because
it would be difficult to solve.

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reaperducer
This is the kind of San Francisco I like to remember: quirky, interesting,
explorable, next-to-nature, with a good dollop of history.

I used to visit SF every few months, but I haven't had an opportunity to
return in the last ten years or so. From what I read on HN, and elsewhere, I'm
not sure I'd want to.

~~~
electricslpnsld
Oakland isn't in San Francisco, the Town is it's own city! (Although, funny
enough, part of Alameda island is in San Francisco.)

~~~
jdavis703
Further Oakland is the third largest city in the Bay Area. San Francisco is
the second largest city. So if we want to conflate the different cities here
we might as well call them all San José since that's the largest city here.

~~~
bayareanative
Most cities of the SF Bay Area blend into one another, take Berkeley and
Oakland as an example. Or Sunnyvale.

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gone35
"The science funders of the world have not lined up to support a Chilean
expedition solely to establish the origin of an anonymous beach hopper."

How much would such an expedition cost? Surely something could be figured out
--even if crowdfunded or something.

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ricardobeat
Maybe the story is not that interesting after all? The guy spent 60 years
building a career as a biologist, in the same area, and ended up never fully
exploring it. Probably a lot of more important puzzles to work on.

------
dvh
It look like common fresh water shrimp Gammarus

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mistrial9
Interesting by way of the continual conflict between authoritative sources
(Western Science with certification) and local knowledge, where ever that is
... some elements of Western English-speaking society have recognized this and
made concerted and codified efforts to bring local peoples into important
discussions and fact-finding.

Specifically in this case, some local people far away from Oakland, California
would be taken as real sources of information, rather than a literature search
finding nothing and declaring the nature in question to be "unknown"

