The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 3 (of 4) : $b A treatise on comparative embryology: VertebrataBalfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Science
The works of Francis Maitland Balfour, Volume 3 (of 4) : $b A treatise on comparative embryology: Vertebrata
Balfour, Francis M. (Francis Maitland)
Embryology; Zoology
4. Tornaria.--This larva (fig. 229) is intermediate in most of its
characters between the larvæ of the Echinodermata (more especially the
Bipinnaria) and the Trochosphere. It resembles Echinoderm larvæ in the
possession of a longitudinal ciliated band (divided into a præoral and
a postoral ring), and in the derivation of the body cavity and
water-vascular vesicle from alimentary diverticula; and it resembles
the Trochosphere in the presence of sense organs on the præoral lobe,
in the existence of a perianal ring of cilia, and in the possession of
a contractile band passing from the præoral lobe to the oesophagus.
[FIG. 224. A LARVA OF STRONGYLOCENTRUS. (From Agassiz.)
_m._ mouth; _a._ anus; _o._ oesophagus; _d._ stomach; _c._
intestine; _['v]._ and _v._ ciliated ridges; _w._ water-vascular
tube; _r._ calcareous rods.]
5. Actinotrocha.--The remarkable larva of Phoronis (fig. 230), known
as Actinotrocha, is characterised by the presence of (1) a postoral
and somewhat longitudinal ciliated ring produced into tentacles, and
(2) a perianal ring. It is provided with a præoral lobe, and a
terminal or somewhat dorsal anus.
6. The larva of the Brachiopoda articulata (fig. 220).
The relationships of the six types of larval forms thus briefly
characterised have been the subject of a considerable amount of
controversy, and the following suggestions on their affinities must be
viewed as somewhat speculative. The Pilidium type of larva is in some
important respects less highly differentiated than the larvæ of the
five other groups. It is, in the first place, without an anus; and
there are no grounds for supposing that the anus has become lost by
retrogressive changes. If for the moment it is granted that the
Pilidium larva represents more nearly than the larvæ of the other
groups the ancestral type of larva, what characters are we led to
assign to the ancestral form which this larva repeats?
[FIG. 225. TWO CHÆTOPOD LARVÆ. (From Gegenbaur.)
_o._ mouth; _i._ intestine; _a._ anus; _v._ præoral ciliated band;
_w._ perianal ciliated band.]
In the first place, this ancestral form, of which fig. 231 A is an
ideal representation, would appear to have had a dome-shaped body,
with a flattened oral surface and a rounded aboral surface. Its
symmetry was radial, and in the centre of the flattened oral surface
was placed the mouth, and round its edge was a ring of cilia. The
passage of a Pilidium-like larva into the vermiform bilateral
Platyelminth form, and therefore it may be presumed of the ancestral
form which this larva repeats, is effected by the larva becoming more
elongated, and by the region between the mouth and one end of the body
becoming the præoral region, and by an outgrowth between the mouth and
the opposite end developing into the trunk, an anus becoming placed at
its extremity in the higher forms.
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