Field trip to Papua New Guinea
In November I spent three weeks in Madang,
northern Papua New Guinea, as part of the Biodiversity Expedition 2012/2013. My
main goal was to find Nemertodermatida, which have been recorded around on Wongat
island in the Madang Lagoon in 1996 by Wolfgang Sterrer (Sterrer 1998). In this
expedition up to four sampling tours were organized (morning, afternoon,
evening, night) using scuba diving, snorkelling and dredging.
In samples from three different sites I
found specimens, which I tentatively identified as Sterreria psammicola.
Although Wolfgang Sterrer recorded a species of Ascoparia I was not able to
find specimens of this family. However, most samples were poor in meiofauna in
general, particularly in Acoela, which were low in species as well as
individual counts.