Claus has figured (’78, Taf. V, Fig. 45, _Fb_) a small bundle of fibres
in the stock of the sensory club lying between the endoderm cells of
the canal and the supporting lamella. The same bundle is found in both
Charybdea and Tripedalia and can be traced in cross-sections up the
stalk to a point which must correspond with that at which the endodermal
tract is seen in Fig. 52. Downwards it can be traced only as far as the
entrance of the stalk into the knob of the club where it invariably
becomes lost to view. According to Hesse (’95, p. 427) Schäfer found
under the endoderm cells of the whole stalk of the marginal body a
fibrous layer like that under the endoderm cells which he refers to
slender processes from the cells of the crystalline sac. Although Hesse,
as we have seen, finds the layer more limited in extent than Schäfer
gives it, and does not trace it to the same source, the observation of
Schäfer seems to me worthy of mention here, inasmuch as the trend of
the fibrous bundle under the endoderm cells of the stalk in Charybdea
and Tripedalia suggests quite strongly that the fibres come from the
crystalline sac, as Schäfer thought to be the case in his medusa.
Besides the radial ganglion situated in the course of the nerve ring at
its four perradial points there are four other similar ganglia on the
subumbrella. These lie in the interradii, at the four lowermost points
of the nerve’s course, and undoubtedly send off nerves into the pedalia
at whose bases they are situated. F. Müller (’59), whose work was not
accessible to me, is quoted by Claus as recording two ganglia opposite
the base of each pedalium which gave off a great number of nerves partly
into the velarium, partly into the tentacles. Claus observed nothing of
the kind in Charybdea and states that even the interradial ganglia do not
exist.
That they do, however, is shown without doubt in sections of both C.
Xaymacana and Tripedalia, but nerves to the velarium or to the tentacles
I was unable to find.
On the two sides of each frenulum and of each suspensorium are found
subepithelial ganglion cells in greater numbers than elsewhere on the
subumbrella, and I am inclined to ascribe to them also the importance
of special ganglia controlling the musculature of the frenula and
suspensoria. Certainly such ganglia would not be out of place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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