The Bougainvillia (Fig. 92), is one of our most common Jelly-fishes,
frequenting our wharves as well as our sea-shore during the spring. The
tentacles are arranged in four bunches or clusters at the junction of
the radiating tubes with the circular tube, from which they may be seen
extending in every direction whenever these animals remain quietly
suspended in the water,--a favorite attitude with them, and one which
they retain sometimes for days, seeming to make no effort beyond that of
gently playing their tentacles to and fro (Fig. 92). These tentacles are
capable of immense extension, sometimes to ten or fifteen times the
diameter of the bell. The proboscis is not simple as in the Sarsia, but
looks like a yellow urn suspended at its four corners from the
chymiferous tubes. The oral opening is entirely concealed by clusters of
shorter tentacles surrounding the mouth in a close wreath, on which the
eggs are supported. A highly magnified branch of the Hydroid stock from
which this Medusa arises is represented in Fig. 93. There we see the
little Jelly-fishes in different degrees of development on the stem,
while in Figs. 94-97 they are given separately and still more enlarged.
In Fig. 94 the outline of the Jelly-fish is still oval, the proboscis is
but just formed, and the tentacles appear only as round swellings or
knobs. In Fig. 95 a depression has taken place at the upper end,
presently to be an opening, the proboscis is enlarged, and the tentacles
lengthened, but still turned inward. In Fig. 96 the appendages of the
proboscis are quite conspicuous, the tentacles are turned outward, and
the Jelly-fish is almost ready to break from its attachment, having
assumed its ultimate outline. Fig. 97 represents it just after it has
separated from the stem, when it has only two tentacles at each cluster
and simple knobs around the mouth, instead of the complicated branching
tentacles of the adult.
[Illustration: Fig. 92. Bougainvillia; magnified.]
[Illustration: Fig. 93. Hydrarium of Bougainvillia; magnified.]
[Illustration: Figs. 94, 95, 96. Medusæ buds of Fig. 93, in
different degrees of development.]
[Illustration: Fig. 97. Young Medusa just freed from the Hydroid;
magnified.]
_Tubularia_. (_Tubularia Couthouyi_ AG.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account