From Professor John Finnerty's Lab

[http://people.bu.edu/jrf3/FinnertyLab/]

(Click on a photo to see a larger version)

 

The starlet sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, is the first "basal" animal whose entire genoma has been sequenced, and Boston Univeristy has served as one of the leading incubators for the development for this important new model system. At the genomic level, this simple animal exhibits lots of unexpected similarity to humans. The picture aboves shows an adult female (left) next to a mass of eggs (center) and a "two-headed" individual that is undergoing a form of asexual reproduction. [Photo by Adam Reitzel of the Finnerty Lab].

"Jellies" are an important component of marine food webs. The comb jelly Mnemiopsis uses its enormous mouth (right) to ingest the planktonic larvae of many commercially important invertebrates and fishes. This species is native to the western Atlantic, but it has invaded the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea where it has devastated commercial fisheries. The specimen above is infected by parasitic worms that are actually a pre-adult stage of the sea anemone Edwardsiella. Professor Finnerty's lab is studying the ecology, developmental biology, and evolution of this host-parasite association. [Photo by Adam Reitzel of the Finnerty lab].