This guy is probably retiring soon: WORM CURATOR
Kristian Fauchald IN AN OTHERWISE UNREMARKABLE STORAGE ROOM in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, racks upon racks of worms float suspended in clear glass jars and appear to sway under the flickering fluorescent light. This is the domain of Kristian Fauchald, research zoologist and curator of worms. And though, yes, that is his formal title, his subjects are specifically in the phylum of annelids, or segmented worms. Many of its varieties -- leeches, for example -- are unnervingly common. But others, such as those that live around the sea vents at the bottom of the Atlantic, have been sighted by only a few. (Fauchald counts the thrill of discovery, or what he calls "that 'aha!' feeling that you are seeing what no one else has seen," as one of the many pleasures of his job.) Annelids can range from a few millimeters in length to 18 feet; a disturbing number come equipped with bear-trap jaws. Fauchald has been fascinated by them since, as a teenager growing up in Arctic Norway, he came upon a small museum with a neglected collection of the creatures. Today, the Smithsonian's 500,000-specimen collection, which was started with the findings of a federal expedition off the East Coast in the 1870s, has been bolstered by contributions from Fauchald's own explorations. His latest discovery was made while snorkeling off of Papua New Guinea earlier this year: a polka-dotted worm that matches the rare coral on which it lives. ********************************************************************* Read full article (with other examples of odd jobs) in tomorrow's Post Magazine http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/06/AR2006120601207_pf.html or http://tinyurl.com/ydjdjn
