Tales and Drawings of a Life by the Sea

Tales and Drawings

of a life by the sea

Brian Morton

Emeritus Professor of Marine Ecology The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR, China

Hardback edition First Published in 2014 by aSys Publishing

eBook edition First Published in 2017 by aSys Publishing

Copyright © 2016 Professor Brian Morton

Professor Brian Morton has asserted his rights under ‘the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988’ to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved

No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission from the author.

aSys Publishing (http://www.asys-publishing.co.uk)

ISBN: 978-1-910757-79-6

Table of Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Tales and Drawings

Zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha

Metasepia pfefferi

Archaster typicus and its parasites: Mucronalia fulvescens and Balcis shaplandi

Eelgrass, Zostera nana

Spondervilia bisculpta

Julia exquisita

Hemifusus ternatanus feeding on Pinna pectinata

Blue-ringed octopus, Hapalochlaena maculosa

Aplysia punctata

Tonna zonatum

Alpheus rapacida and Vanderhorstia mertensi

Nassarius glans particeps

Clinocardium nuttallii

Gari costulata and Moerella donacina

Finella pupoides

Phyllosoma larva of Panulirus argus

Nassarius festivus

Armina longicauda

Surf clam, Donax semigranosus

Minnivola pyxidatus

Widgeongrass, Ruppia maritima

Engina armillata

Buoy barnacle, Dosima fascicularis

Psammotaea elongata

Fragum erugatum

Red-lined bubble shell, Bullina lineata

Nassarius bicallosus

Congeria kusceri and Marifugia cavatica

Salt-pan plants of Lake Macleod, Western Australia

Dumpling squid, Sepioloidea lineolata

Acanthopleura spinosa

Cominella eburnea, Natica gualteriana and Lepsiella hanleyi

Leaf oyster, Dendostrea folium

Hexaplex trunculus

Scintillona cryptozoica and Scintillona daviei

Polinices incei and Donax deltoides

Cerion salvatori

Ditrupa arietina

Atlantic mackerel, Scomber scombrus

Plough-snail, Bullia rhodostoma and by-the-wind sailor, Velella velella

Gilthead seabream, Sparus aurata

Sea grape, Coccoloba uvifera

Munidopsis polymorpha

American jacknife clam, Ensis americanus

Paradise threadfin, Polynemus paradiseus

Golden grey mullet, Liza aurata

Felimare picta

Yellow broom-rape, Cistanche phelypaea

Tellina tenuis

Pelican’s foot, Aporrhais pes-pelecani

Sea rocket, Cakile maritima

Beach pea, Lathyrus japonicus

Silverfish, Trachinotus ovatus

Sprat, Sprattus sprattus

Bledius spectabilis

Silver sea stock and dry purslane

Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis

Anurida maritima

Athanas dorsalis and Anthocidaris crassispina

Curled picarel, Centracanthus cirrus

Monrovian surgeonfish, Acanthurus monroviae

Atlantic emperor, Lethrinus atlanticus

Red-bellied piranha, Pygocentrus nattereri

Armoured catfish, Hoplosternum littorale

Tropical two-winged flying fish, Exocoetus volitans

Sea purslane, Halimione portulacoides and Bembidion (Cillenus) laterale

Four-horned spider crab, Pisa tetraodon

Boarfish, Capros aper

Mediterranean sand smelt, Atherina hepsetus

Newly settled juvenile of the cockle, Cerastoderma edule

King angelfish, Holacanthus passer

Scampi, Nephrops norvegicus

Folliculina viridis

Clupisoma sinensis

Atlantic herring, Clupea harengus

Shame-faced crab, Calappa granulata

Dyschirius impunctipennis and Dyschirius salinus

Bay squid, Photololigo duvaucelii

Burrowing eel goby, Trypauchen vagina

Blue-rayed limpet, Patella pellucida

Final thoughts

Bibliography

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those friends who persuaded me to publish some of my drawings and the written vignettes that accompany them. But, it is especially dedicated to those friends, former students, colleagues and those precious soul mates who have walked on the shores and sailed the seas of this journey of discovery with me.

Quotation

‘Science and art, the highest cultural achievements of humankind’

Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt. In: Haeckel, E. 1998. Art forms in Nature. The prints of Ernst Haeckel. Munich and New York: Prestel.

Author's Notes

This e-book is provided by the author for private use only. All information and illustrations in the book are the copyright of the author. Full colour, high quality hardback copies of the book may be purchased from the author at prof_bmorton@hotmail.co.uk and at a cost plus postage provided on request.

Preface

I have few recollections of, as a boy, neither drawing nor crayoning at home nor of any school art classes. Having failed my (the old) 11 plus examination, and leaving Hertfordshire for West Sussex, I was assigned to Littlehampton County Secondary School for Boys. Here, in the early years of the 1950’s, I was clearly destined for a vocational career and most instruction had a heavy bias towards woodwork, metalwork, gardening and the like and the general pursuit of toughening us all up with regular outdoor sports in all weathers and in the gymnasium. Some of us were also, from the age of about 14, enrolled in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Outward Bound scheme. This seemed, at that time, to involve no more than lots of hiking, climbing, hare and hounds running and corporal punishment for any minor infringement of rules poorly understood. I did, however, gain a love of English, both its language and its literature, through a more enlightened teacher, Mr Don Long. I also developed a mind adept with mental arithmetic through the simple but effective expedient of obtaining a cane across the hand for every one of the questions got wrong during each morning’s quiz of ten. This took up some time with a class of 20 or so boys – the caning not the quiz, I mean. And I cannot remember the name of the teacher responsible, if that is the right definition of him.

At the age of 15, my parents discovered that the school had no (again old) O[rdinary] level stream, in fact there was not a single examination a boy could gain a qualification in and I was duly removed from its premises and sent to Crawley Technical College where I was enrolled in the said stream. O levels obtained –many in science subjects - I remained at Crawley to complete (again old) A[dvanced] level examinations, again in science subjects -zoology, botany and chemistry - but obtained with not overly impressive grades.

At that time, botany and zoology practical classes mostly involved simple experiments but mainly comprised observations and the recording thereof, and an understanding of anatomy through pencil drawings of animal dissections and examination of plants. Except for the zoology teacher, Mr A. Jack, who was studying for an external London Ph.D. degree on mites. He asked for a volunteer to stay on after classes to help with this, involving the drawing of their tiny parts, again with a pencil, and as seen through a microscope with a camera lucida attached. To the amusement of the other boys and girls, I volunteered. He then took my pencil drawings home for inking and, I assume, labelling but I never saw the finished products. Perhaps because he did not finalise them before I left Crawley.

Post school, I hesitated about going to University and took a year off to work as a research assistant at the Glasshouse Crops Research Institute in my home town of Littlehampton. I was assigned to Mr J. Hesling to work with him on heteroderan nematodes. He too was reading for an external London Ph.D. degree and hearing of my work with Mr Jack at Crawley, I was, again, assigned a microscope with a camera lucida. And, after dissecting out the miniscule genital apertures of various pest nematodes with the finest of needles and mounting them on slides, I was also given the task of drawing them with a pencil for him too to finish up inking at home in the evenings.

A year of this was enough and I decided to try for a university place. I knew I had no chance of obtaining a placement either at the Oxbridge or red-brick universities and so plumped for London and, particularly, Chelsea College, which at the time was negotiating for full collegiate status of the University of London. In this, I was encouraged by my uncle, Frank Morton CBE, who was then Professor of Chemical Engineering at Manchester University and founding Vice-Chancellor of the Unversity of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. He was, as too was my father, a committed socialist, friend of Harold Wilson and very keen on helping students such as I to obtain tertiary level education. I can rember being told (with great pride) as a young boy that my grandfather had taken these two boys to see the Scottish socialist and labour leader Keir Hardie (1856–1915) being installed, with a cloth cap, not a top hat, into the Houses of Parliament of the United Kingdom as the first elected Independent Labour Party Member. But, why Chelsea?

The answer to this lies in its foundation as the South West Polytechnic in 1895, becoming Chelsea Polytechnic in 1922, Chelsea College of Science and Technology in 1966 and a constituent college of the University of London, as simply Chelsea College, in 1971. The college occupied a single site on the corner of Manresa Road and King’s Road in Chelsea (SW3) and, bearing in mind the importance of such a location, with the famous Six Bells Public House opposite, to a late teenage lad in the swinging sixties, where else would anyone in their right mind not wish to be a student? As an aside, Chelsea merged with nearby Queen Elizabeth College in 1985 and soon, thereafter, the merged colleges were themselves amalgamated into King’s College. I now, thereby, find myself as an alumnus of one England’s most famous and prestigious colleges by fortuitous default. An alma mater via the delivery-man’s back gate as it were. Quite appropriate, I do, however, feel as the son of a working class family and inheritor of Keir Hardie’s cap.

But, I still had to gain admission to Chelsea and there I think my Uncle Frank had a hand, because, by virtue of history, the college was steeped in socialism. Its origins are exceptionally old and have been documented by S. J. Teague (1969), the college librarian when I was in attendance. At the time I was seeking admission, the college still stuck to its socialist roots and, hence, I was by all accounts an eminently suitable applicant, which I think Uncle Frank put to his like-minded London academic friends. That is the way it was in those days and maybe still is and always will be, to some extent at least. But I still had to be accepted, after being offered an interview.

My interview, in early 1963, was with the newly appointed Professor of Zoology, R.D. Purchon (1916-1992) (Morton 1993), recently returned to England from his Foundation Raffles Chair of Zoology at the still colonial University of Singapore, via a mutually disagreeable and very brief sojourn at the University of Ghana, Legon Accra. I think it fair to say that Dick Purchon and I were as different as chalk and cheese. From his military, prisoner-of-war and colonial background, he sat, stood and walked erect, had an officer-corp bearing complete with immaculately trimmed moustache and a clipped accent. For some inexplicable reason, however, he either seemed to like me or, more likely, took sympathy on me (I was, however, later to discover it was the former) and I was, there and then, accepted to read for an honours degree in zoology with physiology as a first year ancillary subject. I was very happy to accept.

The physiology component of the degree was fascinatingly experimental, but the zoology was classical anatomy based. A whole year of invertebrates, a second of vertebrates and a third of miscellaneous topics – such as embryology but also with two lectures on behaviour and two on ecology and no field work. Very different from the modern biological curriculum. Practical classes were a stream of microscopic and dissecting experiences, the subjects of which all had to be drawn with a pencil and were assiduously corrected and marked. I graduated in 1966. Before leaving, however, and much to my surprise, I was invited to see Dick Purchon and there and then he offered me a University of London Studentship to read for a Ph.D. under his supervision. I was to be his very first higher degree student. The subject was the invasive freshwater mussel, Dreissena polymorpha Pallas, 1771.

Importantly, however, Dick told me that I could research any aspect of the zebra mussel I wished but that, first of all, I had to draw its anatomy, starting with the shell, then the living body and finally examine it microscopically. No photographs were to be taken. We ordered paper (Bristol Board) and Rotring pens ® and ink and I set to work. Every illustration I drew was scrutinised by Dick on which occasion he pointed out errors in dimensions, scale and configuration. ‘Is it really like that?’ he would ask sniffily. The offending diagram was torn up, sometimes by him, and I, shocked, started again. Over and over and over again. Finally, he would say that the latest version was acceptable and I would begin anew on another drawing. His philosophy was simple. One had to know one’s subject intimately before one could even begin to contemplate researching other aspects of it. By this expedient, however, my first paper on the anatomy of Dreissena was published before I graduated, which happened in early 1969 (Morton 1969a). My first lesson in biological, and by that I mean scientific, drawing had been learnt – be as accurate as possible. And, it is true: one does not know either a plant or an animal until one has drawn it. Something that has been largely forgotten in modern biological degree courses.

Without going into further career details, towards the end of 1969, I was offered an assistant lectureship in Zoology at the University of Hong Kong. Once again, this was teaching a still classical zoology and botany honours degree except, of course, many of the demonstrated species were wholly new to me and the students were all Chinese. With a very amateurish local natural history society, little local appreciation of the native flora and fauna, an absence of conservation awareness and, save for a small flock of expatriate bird-watchers, little interest in nature photography, I had to put my infant drawing skills to work. I also had to learn a whole new way of looking at the life around me. And, with no like-minded colleagues to work with, I was floundering in a sea of sub-tropical marine life of amazing diversity such as I had never encountered in Great Britain and that was virtually unknown and unstudied. In order to get to grips with this, something had to be done.

My true intellectual mentor was Sir Charles Maurice Yonge FRS (1899-1986) (Morton 1992), Dick Purchon’s Ph.D. supervisor and, then, still occupying his Regius Chair of Zoology at the University of Glasgow, but shortly to move on to the University of Edinburgh. His simpler, yet nevertheless illuminating, illustrations for the research papers he published, provided me with another aspect of scientific drawing. Do not embellish and do not make the subject too complicated. In Hong Kong, I continued to correspond with Maurice and he suggested I contact a namesake (of mine) biologist in New Zealand, Professor John Morton (1923-2011) (Morton 2011). In 1968, John had published (with Michael Miller) The New Zealand Sea Shore. This was a revolutionary book and, after reading it, I knew I needed to work with this man. John and I corresponded and, through Maurice, I was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship to work with John for three months in the summer of 1972 at the University of Auckland. John Morton was a true eccentric genius: a brilliant lecturer, world-renowned scientist, popular educator and a talented illustrator of equally wonderful research papers and books. I learnt something from him of how to illustrate the complexities of intertidal life and eventually we would together write The Sea Shore Ecology of Hong Kong (Morton and Morton 1983). It took me that long to just begin to understand the complexity of Hong Kong’s marine life.

In 1977, I was invited to be the keynote speaker at a conference in Fort Worth, Texas on the ontroduced bivalve Corbicula, organised by Professor Joe Britton (1942-2006). From that very first meeting, Joe and I became the closest of friends and colleagues – we were, for the start, almost exactly the same age and, more importantly, our research interests were wholly similar. We wrote numerous research papers and two books together – Seashore Ecology of the Gulf of Mexico (1989) and Coastal Ecology of the Açores, the latter in co-operation with Professor Antonio M. de Frias Martins (b. 1946), Professor of Biology at the University of the Açores on the island of São Miguel and another good friend and colleague. Tragically, Joe died in 2006 (Morton 2007a) and I lost one of the nicest men ever to embrace biology.

A final hero of mine was Thomas Alan Stephenson (1898–1961), a British naturalist and marine biologist, specialising in sea anemones. Alan developed an interest in natural history from an early age and went to University College, Aberystwyth, where he began to study the local sea anemones. Subsequently, Stephenson held a number of academic posts in Great Britain and at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, completing his career at his alma mater in Aberystwyth (Yonge 1962). I never met Alan Stephenson but for me and all coastal ecologists of my generation, his seminal work with Anne, his wife, on intertidal communities (Stephenson and Stephenson 1973) holds a special place in my professional life and, moreover, assisted me greatly in the illustration of my own studies of Hong Kong’s marine life.

Through Dick Purchon, Maurice Yonge, John Morton and Joe Britton, plus Alan Stephenson and Tony Frias Martins, therefore, I obtained the tools that would enable me to commence a career in the two areas of molluscan research and intertidal ecology in particular and to be able to illustrate my work if not artistically, at least satisfactorily for professional and popular readers alike in published manuscripts and popular books, respectively. This volume, therefore, represents a series of mostly un-published illustrations undertaken between 1966 and 2014, that is, they encompass almost fifty years of marine and freshwater study.

The portfolio of illustrations presented herein comprises an ecletic, miscellaneous, assortment of illustrations, not the usual sketches and paintings of lions, giraffes and elephants, more the smaller creatures of the sea and shore. The illustrations also reflect my own special interests of the plants and animals of the coastline and the intertidal, particularly the Mollusca that are my speciality, especially the typically sedentary bivalves, but also gastropods which have found so many ways of obtaining nutrition. From, particularly, and circuitously, their bivalve cousins, the most prolific and nutritious prey available to them at the sea’s margin. On reflection, however, I seem to have drawn, at some time or other, representatives of most invertebrate groups, even the ciliate protozoan Folliculina, but perhaps the most rewarding of creatures are the fishes, to be either caught or discovered in seafood markets the world over and providing the most wonderful examples and stories about the group’s adaptive radiation as well as proving to be a delicious and nutritious meal subsequently.

Most of the illustrations have never been published before and where they have, an acknowledgement is made. And these particular illustrations are included because of some especially tantalising snippet of information about them. The reader may also become aware that the number of the un-published drawings has increased approximately year by year. This is because, early in one’s teaching and research career, there was less time to engage in recreational illustrations, one’s focus, of necessity, being on more explanatory ones, suiting the purpose of adorning scientific facts with appropriately scientific figures. Only later, a family grown up, release from teaching, higher degree student supervision, the tortures of academic meetings and yet more meetings, did time become available for more thoughtful, esoteric and, hopefully, diligent work - or rather recreation. Lastly, the reader may detect an improving trend as the years unfold with each illustration. I do hope so.

Today, in retirement, I still write, but indulge myself more with a pen and ink and the reader may, finally, observe that over the years and as the drawings are perused, I am turning to colour. This is a reality and an ongoing experiment with life’s challenges. For, that is the beauty of drawing, particularly for one’s own pleasure. One can experiment continually, be critical in private and, I have to say, that the concentration involved relaxes the mind, opening it up to ancillary contemplations, suggesting new projects and the continued planning for new and exciting promises of discovery.

The gifts I was given by my mentors, friends, colleagues and heroes thus remain with me and are fulfilled today as an appreciation of them, their kindnesses to me, their talents but especially their services to the marine biological sciences and, thereby, the greater eduction and edification of all whom they have served so diligently.

Brian Morton

1 May 2014

Acknowledgments

The portfolio represents illustrations undertaken over a