lesser-known protostome taxa: An introduction and a tribute to Robert P. Higgins, The

Integrative and Comparative Biology, Jun 2002 by Garey, James R

With all the changes and new ideas in phylogeny, new molecular tools, and with the continued discovery of new taxa (for example, Reinhardt Kristensen introduced a new group of animals, the micrognathozoans, at this symposium that were discovered in a freshwater spring in Greenland), interest appears strong in continuing symposia on this topic at approximately five year intervals, perhaps rotating different taxa at different meetings.

HISTORY OF THE SYMPOSIUM AND A TRIBUTE TO ROBERT P. HIGGINS

This symposium was organized in response to requests and inquiries from a number of people at the 1998 SICB symposium on Metazoan evolution (McHugh and Halanych, 1998). The symposium has a history going back to 1976 when Robert Higgins organized a refresher course on the lesser-known invertebrates at a joint meeting of the American Institute of Biological Sciences and the American Microscopical Society (AMS) that took place in New Orleans in 1976, and most recently in 1990 at a joint meeting of the American Society of Zoologists and the AMS in San Antonio that was also organized by Higgins. He has been instrumental in promoting the study of lesserknown taxa over the years. As a graduate student, he was present at the well-known symposium on the "Lower Metazoa" in Berkeley (see Dougherty et al., 1963), which took place in 1961 and included such noted scientists as Adolf Remane, Peter Ax, and others (Fig. 3). Higgins had a long career at the Smithsonian Institution, was very active in the American Society of Zoologists (now SICB) and played a major role in the discovery of the phylum Loricifera. Despite being retired, Bob Higgins was invited to speak at this symposium, and although he was unable to attend, he co-- authored a contribution with Birger Neuhaus in these proceedings on kinorhynchs. Bob Higgins provided a short biography/history of his career, which is of interest to anyone who studies the lesser-known animal groups so I have included it here in its entirety:

How the "lesser knowns" became "better-- known" by Robert P. Higgins.

My professional introduction to invertebrates occurred in 1953 during an ecology course taught by Robert W. Pennak at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Each student had to design a research project. During this time, I was working in the university's cryptogamic botany lab-processing mosses and lichens for the museum at 35 cents an hour. I asked Dr. Pennak for some ideas for a project and he told me to look at the washings from the mosses and lichens-he assured me that if done carefully, I would find some very interesting invertebrates occupying this habitat. Sure enough, I found tardigrades, thousands of tardigrades, along with bdelloid rotifers, nematodes, water mites, chironomid larvae, and a few others long forgotten.

The next year, I enrolled in Pennak's two-semester course in Invertebrate Zoology. I was now a junior at the university and by the end of that year I decided to study tardigrades as a thesis subject for my Master's degree. Dr. Pennak was very pleased and went on to tell me that there were numerous major taxa that were not as uncommon as were scientists interested in studying them. And that I should study tardigrades. And so I did.