Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-1876, First Part: Porulosa (Spumellaria and Acantharia): Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76, Vol. XVIIIHaeckel, Ernst
Science
Report on the Radiolaria Collected by H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-1876, First Part: Porulosa (Spumellaria and Acantharia): Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873-76, Vol. XVIII
Haeckel, Ernst
Radiolaria
The question whether the Radiolaria are to be regarded as true animals I
discussed fully from various points of view in 1862, and finally answered
in the affirmative (L. N. 16, pp. 159-165). Afterwards, when in my
Generelle Morphologie (1866) I sought to establish the kingdom Protista,
I removed the Radiolaria along with the other Rhizopoda from the animal
kingdom proper and placed them in the kingdom Protista (Bd. i. pp.
215-220; Bd. ii. p. xxix). Compare also my Protistenreich (L. N. 32) and
my Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (vii. Aufl., 1879, p. 364). Both these
steps appear fully justified when considered in the light of our present
increased knowledge. From the _physiological_ standpoint the Radiolaria
appear as unicellular _animals_, for in this respect the animal character
of their metastasis (that proper to an oxidising organism) furnishes the
sole {cxxx}criterion. On the other hand, from the morphological
standpoint, they are to be classed as neutral Protista, for in this
respect their unicellular character is the prominent feature, and
distinguishes them from all true multicellular animals (Metazoa). Compare
my Gastræa Theorie (1873, Jena. Zeitschr. für Naturwiss., Bd. viii. pp.
29, 53).
204. _Nutrition._--The nutritive materials which the Radiolaria require for
their sustenance, especially albuminates (plasma) and carbohydrates
(starch, &c.), they obtain partly from foreign organisms which they capture
and digest, and partly directly from the Xanthellæ or Philozoa, the
unicellular Algæ, with which they live in symbiosis (§ 205). _Zooxanthella
intracapsularis_, found in the ACANTHARIA (§ 76), is probably of the same
significance in this respect as _Zooxanthella extracapsularis_ of the
SPUMELLARIA and NASSELLARIA (§ 90); and perhaps the same is true also of
_Phæodella extracapsularis_ (or _Zoochlorella phæodaris_?) of the PHÆODARIA
(§ 89). The considerable quantity of starch or amyloid bodies, elaborated
by these inquiline symbiontes, as well as their protoplasm and nucleus, are
available, on their death, for the nutrition of the Radiolaria which
harbour them. Nutrition by means of other particles obtained by the
pseudopodia from the surrounding medium is by no means excluded; indeed it
may be regarded as certain that numerous Radiolaria (especially such as
contain no symbiotic Algoid cells) are nourished for the most part or
exclusively by this means. Diatoms, Infusoria, Thalamophora (Foraminifera)
as well as decaying particles of animal and vegetable tissues can be seized
directly by the pseudopodia and conveyed either to the sarcodictyum (on the
surface of the calymma) or to the sarcomatrix (on the surface of the
central capsule) in order to undergo digestion there. The indigestible
constituents (siliceous shells of Diatoms and Tintinnoidea, calcareous
shells of small Monothalamia and Polythalamia, &c.) are here collected
often in large numbers and removed by the streaming of the protoplasm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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