The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 04 (of 10)Warburton, Cecil
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 04 (of 10)
Warburton, Cecil
Animals
Both families, of which the Apseudidae contain the larger forms,
sometimes attaining to an inch in length, are littoral in habit, or
occur in sand and ooze at considerable depths, many of the genera being
blind. Many Tanaids (_e.g._ _Leptochelia_, _Tanais_, _Heterotanais_,
etc.) live in the algal growths of the littoral zone, and being highly
heliotropic they are easy to collect if a basinful of algae is placed in
a strong light. The females carry the eggs about with them in a
brood-pouch formed, as is usual in the Peracarida, by lamellae produced
from the bases of the thoracic limbs. The males on coming to maturity do
not appear to grow any more, or to take food, their mouth-parts
frequently degenerating and the alimentary canal being devoid of food.
They are thus in the position of insects which do not moult after coming
to maturity; and, as in Insects, the males are apt to show a kind of
high and low dimorphism—certain of the males being small with secondary
sexual characters little different from those of the females, while
others are large with these characters highly developed. Fritz Müller,
in his _Facts for Darwin_, observes that in a Brazilian species of
_Leptochelia_, apparently identical with the European _L. dubia_, the
males occur under two totally distinct forms—one in which the chelae are
greatly developed, and another in which the chelae resemble those of the
female, but the antennae in this form are provided with far longer and
more numerous sensory hairs than in the first form. Müller suggested
that these two varieties were produced by natural selection, the
characters of the one form compensating for the absence of the
characters of the other. A general consideration of the sexual
dimorphism in the Tanaidae[99] lends some support to this view, since
the smaller species with feeble chelae do appear to be compensated by a
greater development of sensory hairs on the antennae, but the specific
differences are so difficult to appreciate in the Tanaidae that it is
possible that the two forms of the male in Müller’s supposed single
species really belonged to two separate species.
=Sub-Order 2. Flabellifera.=
The Flabellifera include a number of rather heterogeneous families which
resemble one another, however, in the uropods being lateral and not
terminal, and being expanded together with the telson to form a caudal
fan for swimming. The pleopods are sometimes natatory and sometimes
branchial in function. Some of the families are parasitic or
semi-parasitic in habit.
=Fam. 1. Anthuridae.=—These are elongated cylindrical creatures found in
mud and among weeds upon the sea-bottom; their mouth-parts are evidently
intended for piercing and sucking, but whether they are parasitic at
certain periods on other animals is not exactly known. _Anthura_,
_Paranthura_, _Cruregens_.
[Illustration:
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