JRS Biodiversity grantees and colleagues, Manuel António E. Malaquias, Lena T. Ohnheiser, Trond R. Oskars, and Endre Willassen, at the University of Bergen (JRS grant page) announced four new-to-science species of gastropod this month discovered during extensive surveys of marine invertebrates along the West African continental shelf. We were honored to learn that one of the species has been named after an American botanist and the founding Editor-in-Chief of Biological Abstracts, Dr. Jacob Robert Schramm. Biological Abstracts, later BIOSIS, was sold in 2004 and the profits from the sale became the JRS Biodiversity Foundation’s endowment.

Meet Philine schrammi, which perhaps could be familiarly known as Schramm’s bubble shell. Belonging to a group of gastropods known as Cephalaspideans, P. schrammi looks similar to many snails but has a very delicate internal shell. The male specimen identified as the species representative was collected off the coast of Guinea Bissau, and is distinguished from similar species not only by genetic analysis, but also by features of its digestive system, and, if you’ll excuse a philanthropy pun, the proportions of his … endowments.

Read the paper describing the species and the Marine Invertebrates of Western Africa blog post.