Smithsonian scientist, Gene Hunt, inspects a deep-sea crustacean specimen under the microscope.

Dr. Gene Hunt, curator of Ostracoda for the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, inspects a deep-sea ostracode specimen under the microscope. Ostracoda are small crustaceans, typically around 1 millimeter in size. Their bodies are flattened from side to side and protected by a bivalve-like, calcareous valve or "shell". The hinge of the two valves is in the upper (dorsal) region of the body.

Dr. Hunt is particularly interested in morphologic evolution in deep-sea Ostracoda, in his own words, "My research interests are diverse, but one common theme that underpins many of these projects is the translation of evolutionary processes acting on short time scales into patterns that are observable in the fossil record. Most commonly, I use the deep-sea micro-fossil record to investigate some of these connections between evolution on micro- and macro- time scales".