The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 07 (of 10)Boulenger, George Albert
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 07 (of 10)
Boulenger, George Albert
Animals
The primary buds are constricted off while still very young and undeveloped
(Fig. 60, D, B, and E); they migrate from their place of origin on the
stolon, over the surface (aided by large amoeboid test-cells which become
attached to the buds) (Fig. 60, B), multiply by fission, and become
attached (again by the help of amoeboid test-cells and ectoderm cells which
form a slight "placenta") in three rows—a median and two lateral—to the
dorsal outgrowth (Fig. 60, C) of the body of the nurse. This parent-form by
this time has become greatly modified, and its structure is largely
sacrificed for the good of the buds or growing zooids, for which it really
forms a locomotory organ. Its muscle-bands become greatly developed in
width (Fig. 60, C), and the branchial meshwork, endostyle, and alimentary
canal disappear.
The three forms produced in the second generation are as follows:—(1)
Nutritive forms ("trophozooids") derived from the lateral rows of buds,
which remain permanently attached to the {99}oozooid, and are sacrificed
for the benefit of the rest of the colony. They serve merely to aid in
respiration, and to provide the food for the nurse and the median buds.
Their development is arrested; they have the body elongated dorso-ventrally
with a large funnel-like branchial aperture (Fig. 60, F), and the
musculature is very slightly developed.
(2) Some of the median buds become foster forms ("phorozooids"), which,
like the preceding trophozooids, do not become sexually mature, but, unlike
them, are eventually set free as cask-shaped bodies having the _Doliolum_
appearance, with eight encircling muscle-bands, and having, moreover, a
ventral outgrowth (not a stolon), which is formed of the stalk by which the
body was formerly attached to the dorsal process of the oozooid. On this
ventral outgrowth the "gonozooids" (3) are attached while still very young
buds, and after the phorozooids are set free these reproductive forms
gradually attain their complete development, become sexually mature, and
are eventually separated off, finally losing all trace of their temporary
connexion with the foster-forms. They resemble the foster-forms in having a
cask-shaped body with eight muscle-bands, but differ in the absence of a
ventral process, and in having the sexual reproductive organs fully
developed.
OCCURRENCE.—The best-known member of the genus is _Doliolum tritonis_,
Herdman, which was captured in the tow-nets in thousands by Sir John Murray
during the cruise of H.M.S. "Triton" in the summer of 1882 in the North
Atlantic. Since then that species, or the closely allied _D. nationalis_,
Borgert, have been found on more than one occasion in the English Channel
and other parts of our south-west coast, and so _Doliolum_ may be regarded
as an occasional member of the British surface fauna.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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