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Dr. Caldwell manages the UC Museum of Paleontology and teaches at UC Berkeley in the Biology department. However, his favorite thing to do is to research stomatopods - an underwater mantis shrimp that has the most complicated eyesight of the entire animal kingdom! Stomatopods also have their own secret language that nobody can hear or see! Pretty cool, huh?

What research are you currently working on?

Stomatopods, or mantis shrimp as they are commonly called, have the most complicated eyes in the animal kingdom, and I am working on how they communicate using signals. They can see forms of light that other animals cannot see at all! This light can be used to signal and communicate with other stomatopods. Because mantis shrimp produce signals that only their eyes can see, no other animal can identify this communication! It is like having a secret code that no one else can detect or decipher.

Wow! So you’re like a secret agent or detective! What else is cool about stomatopods?

Stomatopods are an ancient group of marine predators. 400 million years ago they were related to a group of animals called crustaceans, which are animals like lobsters or crabs. But mantis shrimp evolved a pair of weapons that makes them different than other types of crustaceans or shrimps. They have “raptorial appendages,” which are really big claws that unfold and strike prey by stabbing or smashing. Sometimes stomatopods use these weapons against other stomatopods. Some species are so strong that they can kill a victim in a single blow!

How did you know that stomatopods were related to other crustaceans 400 million years ago?

Paleontology is the study of ancient life – mostly through the study of fossils. We try to understand what life was like in the past, hopefully so that we can understand how a species might change in the future. This study also finds out how organisms are related to one another and how they have evolved or changed over the years.

You work at the UC Museum of Paleontology. How does the museum help you uncover the truth about stomatopods?

Museums are the storage places of the samples we collect, and these act as our windows to the past. We have literally millions of specimens and are adding more all the time. The museum provides access to those specimens and information about them to hundreds of scientists who visit the museum and to thousands more who visit us online.

Why is it important to visit museums?

People help conserve and protect what they know, understand, and what interests them. If my work in the museum can get someone excited about vision in a stomatopod, that person then knows what a stomatopod is and where it lives. This knowledge just might make people want to help preserve the habitat in which stomatopods live.

What do you think is the most important action somebody can do to help stomatopods, the ocean, and our planet?

The simplest answer I can give is, “Leave the seas as you found them!” There are many large and complex problems facing the world’s oceans. These problems are so big that it is hard to see how the actions of any one person can have much impact. However, if we all picked up our trash on the beach, if every diver kept her hands off live corals, if we all refused to eat species of fish that are threatened, we will have an impact. And if we all start working to protect the ocean by ourselves, there is hope that corporations and governments will follow our lead.

So one person really can make a difference! What are you doing to help?

Over the past few years I have been working with some of my former students to study how blast fishing destroys coral reefs. For very little money, fishermen can make a single bottle bomb that demolishes an area the size of a small room. The fishermen then collect all of the fish that were killed by the explosion, and the coral reef may never recover. Sometimes coral pieces created by the blasts keep rolling around, and this makes it impossible for baby corals to settle and begin to grow. My students and I are researching ways that damaged reefs can recover, and we have been working on inexpensive ways to supply stable surfaces for the baby corals.

When these coral reefs are restored, many more corals, fish, plants, and other species can return to the area. The ocean is full of life. Why do you love the ocean?

Why do I love the ocean? I guess because whenever I enter it, it feels totally new. We know so little about how the sea works and the life it contains. How can you not be curious and awed by each dive or snorkel?

Biography

Roy L. Caldwell is a biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as the Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Roy researches invertebrate behaviors and specializes in species of tropical marine predators (stomatopod crustaceans). Predators are animals that feed off of other living organisms, and Roy studies how these species develop natural weapons and use aggression in their everyday lives. Roy also loves to travel, and he has been conducting research all over the world, including places like Belize, Bermuda, the Caribbean, Fiji, Guam, Hawaii, Australia, and on both coasts of the United States.