ANGELINA DOHRE
Staff Writer
Almost 10 years ago, then-Yale graduate student Thomas Hegna began collaborating on research that would lead to a new discovery of crustacean species. Now a new assistant professor at Fredonia, Hegna recently finalized the project that has lasted since long before he received his Ph.D.
The project began when Hegna attended a conference at the Geologic Society of America and met his collaborator, Francisco Vega.
“[Vega] was presenting a poster for the first time on some of these creatures preserved in amber from Chiapas, Mexico, particularly the crustaceans,” Hegna said.
At the time, Hegna was aware of a new micro-CT scanner that was at Yale and decided to reach out to Vega about collaborating.
“I was interested in trying to CT scan some of the material he had,” he said. “For a variety of reasons, this project over the last 10 years has become hot and cold as we’ve had time to collaborate on it.”
This year, they finally had the chance to finish the project and push it out to the public.
Hegna recalls that he always had a passion for paleontology.
“This is a fascination that I’ve had since I was very little,” he said. “I come from a family of teachers, so teaching was a natural fit for me.”
This field is something Hegna considers as more than just a career.
“Paleontology is not only what I do professionally, but it’s also kind of my hobby,” he said. “It’s what I research in my free time and work on and think about in my free time. It is a true passion.”
So what exactly is this new crustacean species, and how did it end up in the amber? Hegna breaks down the basic contradiction of these fossils.
“Amber comes from trees. These crustaceans are aquatic,” he said. “How do you get the two to meet?”
The species found by Hegna and his collaborators is called Caecorchestia bousfieldi and also is known as beach fleas.
Similar crustaceans to this species have been observed in amber before. Previous hypotheses were one-off explanations, stating they were washed in by a flood or blown in by the wind. However, other scientists discovered that resin-producing trees can release resin underwater in a permanently flooded coastal forest, known as a mangrove forest.
Another interesting point is that this crustacean species was blind.
“That’s something that you normally associate with cave-dwelling animals,” he said. “Of course, in this situation we’ve got no cave … we can’t really explain that at this point because we don’t have the cave or the habitat. Indeed we may not ever be able to explain it, but that’s something very curious about these creatures.”
Hegna said the only thing that would continue this research would be new findings.
“I’m definitely open to that if we get new information on these preserved,” he said. “But at the same time, the field of amber studies and paleontology is getting kind of crowded, so I’m happy to work on things where the pace isn’t quite so quick.”
Instead of amber studies, Hegna plans to focus on other research and teaching classes at Fredonia.
“I don’t have any other ins to the amber community,” he said. “I’ll be concentrating on other projects at this point … still dealing with crustaceans ,but not with amber.”