Planocera inquilina, a polyclad inhabiting the branchial chamber of sycotypus canaliculatus, gill
✍ Scribed by William Morton Wheeler
- Book ID
- 102371503
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1894
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 370 KB
- Volume
- 9
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0362-2525
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
IN glancing over a recent paper by Verrilll on the marine planarians of New Englanda work which the sea-side zoologist will find extrcmely useful-I find no mention of a curious Polyclad, which is nevertheless quite common in Vineyard Sound, Mass., the locality in which much of Verrill's material was collected. Having likewise failed to find any mention of this species in the writings of Lang2 and v. Graff,3 I conclude that it is new. Perhaps the most interesting peculiarity of this ncw form, which undoubtedly belongs to the genus PZamcem, as defined by Lang, is its pa;asitic mode of life. After reviewing all the cases of supposed parasitism among Yolyclads, Lang concludes with the words (p. 630):
'( Kurz, es erscheint mehr als zweifelhaft, dass irgend eine der bis jetzt bekannten Polycladen wirklich cine parasitische Lebensweise fuhre." The new PZanocera, however, seems to be a true ectoparasite, although I am not sure that it sucks the juices of the mollusk on which it lives.4 In all I have opened about IOO adult specimens of Sycotypzts, and in the branchial chamber of nearly every individual from one to six of 1 A. E. Verrill, Marine Planarians of New England.