In the bell cavity the proboscis has a longer and better defined stalk
than that of Charybdea, and has the further and more important difference
of possessing special sensory organs, to the number of fifteen or twenty.
The suspensoria are much more developed than in Charybdea, so that the
interradial funnels lying between are more marked. In a corresponding way
the frenula are larger and stouter (Figs. 28, 29, _frn_). The musculature
shows no new features and differs only in being comparatively more
strongly developed and having a more pronounced striation. The nerve ring
follows the same looped course from the margin in each interradius up to
the level of the sensory clubs in the perradius.
c. _Internal Anatomy._
The stomach offers no peculiarities, and the phacelli also agree with
those of Charybdea except in having a smaller number of filaments in each
tuft. The stomach pockets are not guarded by such well-developed valves
as those described for Charybdea, though the valvular nature of the lips
of the gastric ostia is indicated and the valvular functions undoubtedly
performed. The gastric ostia are smaller (cf. Figs. 7 and 22), and this
makes highly developed valves less necessary. No trace of anything
corresponding to mesogonial pockets was noticed.
In the matter of the marginal pockets, however, we find that the
agreement with Charybdea is no longer continued. The regions that
correspond to the eight marginal pockets of Charybdea are formed, as in
that genus, by the coming together of the exumbrella and subumbrella at
the sensory niche (Figs. 25-28), but each of these regions is subdivided,
as it is not in Charybdea, into two marginal pockets, a larger (_mp_,
Figs. 28-29) and a smaller (_mp´_). In this way sixteen marginal pockets
are formed as in the Chirodropidæ. Furthermore, as happens in the latter
family but does not in the Charybdeidæ, the marginal pockets extend into
the velarium. From each of the larger marginal pockets are given off two
velar canals, while each of the smaller gives rise to but one short one
(Fig. 18). Fig. 30 represents one of the last sections of a Tripedalia
cut transversely, in which nothing but the pedalia and the velarium
appear, and in it are shown the velar canals (_vc_), which come from the
larger marginal pockets. The velarium appears in four segments because it
is drawn upwards in the four perradii by the frenula (see Fig. 20). That
the canals from the smaller pockets do not appear in the section is due
to their shortness and to the fact that they are pulled upwards above the
level of the sections by the frenula, together with that portion of the
velarium.
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