France: Lab Work

2022-12-03

The final two weeks of the trip were spent in the lab. Since polyps are small and don’t have many defining features, it is very difficult to identify the species just by looking at them. So we used two other methods to ID poylps: strobilation and DNA.

Strobilation is the process by which polyps make medusae, and medusae of the two species look very different.

So, we sent some polyps to the Paris Aquarium so they could grow and strobilate the polyps. This takes a few weeks, so we are still waiting on the results! In the meantime, the aquarists shared some photos of our polyps with us.

Polyps can also be identified using their DNA, which needs to be extracted and prepared before it can be sent to a commercial facility for sequencing. We are still waiting on the results of this too!