FARMINGTON, Maine — Nancy Prentiss, a faculty member at the University of Maine-Farmington, recently hit the jackpot in biological research, according to a statement from the school.
Prentiss, who spends much of her off-campus time in St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, recently discovered a new genus and species of marine creature, according to the statement.
The work started in the summer of 2010 while Prentiss was snorkeling in St. John’s when she turned over the last of hundreds of rocks that day, and discovered the underside of one of them was covered with coiled calcium carbonate tubes that each protected a brilliant red-and-white-colored polychaete or marine worm.
Prentiss’ team worked with experts from Greece and the Netherlands to properly describe and identify the specimen and presented her preliminary findings at an international conference in Australia.
DNA gene sequences were subsequently obtained, and scanned images of the worms determined that it was indeed a new genus and species of polychaete.
The newly discovered worm, Turbocavus secruts, is named after the location — Hurricane Hole — in which Prentiss discovered it.
