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
The results arrived at may be summarised as follows:
1. The larval forms above the Coelenterata may be divided into six
groups enumerated on pages 370 to 373.
2. The prototype of all these groups was an organism something like a
Medusa, with a radial symmetry. The mouth was placed in the centre of
a flattened ventral surface. The aboral surface was dome-shaped. Round
the edge of the oral surface was a ciliated ring, and probably a
nervous ring provided with sense organs. The alimentary canal was
prolonged into two or more diverticula, and there was no anus.
3. The bilaterally symmetrical types were derived from this larval
form by the larva becoming oval, and the region in front of the mouth
forming a præoral lobe, and that behind the mouth growing out to form
the trunk. The aboral dome became the dorsal surface.
On the establishment of a bilateral symmetry the anterior part of the
nervous ring gave rise (?) to the supraoesophageal ganglia, and the
optic organs connected with them; while the posterior part of the
nerve-ring formed (?) the ventral nerve-cords. The body cavity was
developed from two of the primitive alimentary diverticula.
The usual view that radiate forms have become bilateral by the
elongation of the aboral dome into the trunk is probably erroneous.
4. Pilidium is the larval form which most nearly reproduces the
characters of the larval prototype in the course of its conversion
into a bilateral form.
5. The Trochosphere is a completely differentiated bilateral form, in
which an anus has become developed. The præoral ciliated ring of the
Trochosphere is probably directly derived from the ciliated ring of
Pilidium, which is itself the original ring of the prototype of all
these larval forms.
6. Echinoderm larvæ, in the absence of a nerve-ganglion or special
organs of sense on the præoral lobe, and in the presence of alimentary
diverticula, which give rise to the body cavity, retain some
characters of the prototype larva which have been lost in Pilidium.
The ciliated ring of Echinoderm larvæ is probably derived directly
from that of the prototype by the formation of an anus on the dorsal
side of the ring. The anus was very probably originally situated at
the aboral apex.
Adult Echinoderms have probably retained the radial symmetry of the
forms from which they are descended, their nervous ring being directly
derived from the circular nervous ring of their ancestors. They have
not, as is usually supposed, secondarily acquired their radial
symmetry. The bilateral symmetry of the larva is, on this view,
secondary, like that of so many Coelenterate larvæ.
7. The points of similarity between Tornaria and (1) the Trochosphere
and (2) the Echinoderm larvæ are probably adaptive in the one case or
the other; and, while there is no difficulty in believing that those
to the Trochosphere are adaptive, the presence of a water-vascular
vesicle with a dorsal pore renders probable a real affinity with
Echinoderm larvæ.
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