The evidence so far has consistently pointed to some member of the
palæostracan group as the ancestor of the vertebrates--a group which had
affinities both to the crustaceans and the arachnids; indeed, many of its
members resembled scorpions much more than they resemble crustaceans. The
olfactory organs of the scorpions and their allies are, therefore, more
likely than any others to give a clue to the position of the desired
olfactory organs. In these animals and their allies paired olfactory
antennæ are not present, either in the living land-forms or the extinct
sea-scorpions, for all the antennæ-like, frequently chelate, appendages
seen in Pterygotus, etc. (Fig. 8), represent the cheliceræ, and correspond,
therefore, to the second pair of antennæ in the crustaceans.
What, then, represents the olfactory antennæ in the scorpions? The answer
to this question has been given by Croneberg, and very striking it is. The
two olfactory antennæ of the crustacean have combined together to form a
hollow tube at the base of which the mouth of the animal is situated, so
that the food passes along this olfactory passage before it reaches the
mouth. This organ is often called after Latreille, the camerostome,
sometimes the rostrum; it is naturally median in position and appears,
therefore, to be an unpaired organ; its paired {222}character is, of
course, evident enough, for it is innervated by a pair of nerves, and these
nerves, as ought to be the case, arise from the supra-oesophageal ganglia.
In Galeodes it is a conspicuously paired antennæ-like organ (Fig. 94).
Croneberg has also shown that this rostrum, or camerostome, arises
embryologically as a pair of appendages similar to the other appendages.
This last observation of Croneberg has been confirmed by Brauer in 1894,
who describes the origin of the upper lip, as he calls it, in very similar
terms, without, however, referring to Croneberg's paper. Croneberg further
shows that this foremost pair of antennæ not only forms the so-called upper
lip or camerostome, but also a lower lip, for from the basal part of the
camerostome there projects on each side of the pharynx a dependent
accessory portion, which in some cases fuses in the middle line, and forms,
as it were, a lower lip. The entosclerite belonging to this dependent
portion is apparently the post-oral entosclerite of Lankester and Miss
Beck.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--DORSAL VIEW OF BRAIN AND CAMEROSTOME OF GALEODES.
_cam._, camerostome; _pr. ent._, pre-oral entosclerite; _l.l._, dependent
portion of camerostome; _ph._, pharynx; _al._, alimentary canal; _n. op._,
median optic nerves; _pl._, plastron; _v.c._, ventral nerve chain; 2, 3,
second and third appendages.]
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