Marissa McNamara
Dr Marissa McNamara is a Collection Manager working with the crustacean collection. She performs many different tasks, including registering new specimens into the State Collection, helping researchers borrow specimens, and answering public enquiries — which can be tricky, because there are about 10,000 crustacean species in Australia!
Marissa loves the diversity of this group, which includes not just crabs, prawns and lobsters, but spear-wielding mantis shrimps and giant deep-sea isopods! And don’t forget hermit crabs— these shell-inhabiting crustaceans are some of her favourites, and she co-authored a new species of hermit in 2024. When she’s not counting crabs or boxing barnacles, Marissa also helps manage the fish collection, and has recently been working with deep-sea fishes collected in up to 4000m of water.
Projects
- Description of a new species of hermit crab, Strigopagurus fragarchela, from SE Queensland, in depths between 120 and 260m.
See: Meet Strawberry Claws, a new species of hermit crab - Sorting and registration of deep-sea CIDARIS fish specimens from as deep as 4,000 metres!
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