The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 2 (of 4) : $b A treatise on comparative embryology: InvertebrataBalfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Science
The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 2 (of 4) : $b A treatise on comparative embryology: Invertebrata
Balfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Embryology; Zoology
Many eggs, such as those of the Myriapods[45], present an irregular
segmentation; but the segmentation is hardly unequal in the sense in
which I have been using the term. Such cases should perhaps be placed
in the first rather than in the present category.
[45] Metschnikoff, _Zeitschrift f. wiss. Zoologie_, 1874.
The type of unequal segmentation is on the whole the most widely
distributed in the animal kingdom. There is hardly a group without
examples of it.
It occurs in Porifera, Hydrozoa, Actinozoa and Ctenophora. Amongst the
Ctenophora this segmentation is of the most typical kind. Four equal
segments are first formed in the two first periods. In the third
period a circumferential furrow separates four smaller from four
larger segments.
This type is also widely distributed amongst the unsegmented
(Gephyrea, Turbellaria), as well as the segmented Vermes, and is
typical for the Rotifera. It appears to be very rare in Echinoderms
(_Echinaster Sarsii_). It is not uncommon in early stages of the
segmentation of the lower Crustacea.
For Mollusca (except Cephalopoda) it is typical. Amongst the Ascidia
it occurs in several forms (_Salpa_, _Molgula_) and amongst
the Craniata it is typical in the Cyclostomata, Amphibia, and some
Ganoids, _e.g. Accipenser_.
Partial segmentation. The next type of segmentation we have to
deal with has long been recognized as partial segmentation. It is a
type in which only part of the ovum, called the germinal disc,
undergoes segmentation, the remainder usually forming an appendage of
the embryo known as the yolk-sack. Ova belonging to the two groups
already dealt with are frequently classed together as holoblastic ova,
in opposition to ova of the present group in which the segmentation is
only partial, and which are therefore called meroblastic. For
embryological purposes this is in many ways a very convenient
classification, but ova belonging to the present group are in reality
separated by no sharp line from those belonging to the group just
described.
[FIG. 44. SURFACE VIEWS OF THE EARLY STAGES OF THE SEGMENTATION IN A
FOWL'S EGG. (After Coste.)
_a._ edge of germinal disc. _b._ vertical furrow. _c._ small central
segment. _d._ larger peripheral segment.]
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