The fine structure of the circumesophageal nerve in several decapod crustaceans

✍ Scribed by Ziedonis Skobe; Rudolph F. Nunnemacher

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1970
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 867 KB
• Volume: 139
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-9967
• DOI: 10.1002/cne.901390105

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In order to obtain a better understanding of the significance of the anatomy of the crustacean nervous system with respect to behavior entire cross sections of circumesophageal connective nerves were examined by electron microscopy to determine the number and diameter of nerve fibers in the following species: Crangon septemspinosa, Pagurus pollicaris, P. longicarpus, Carcinus maenas, Cal. linectes sapidus, Podophthalmus vigil, Cancer irroratus, C. borealis, Grapsus grapsus, Gecarcinus lateralis, Uca pugnax, and Libinia emarginata. The diameter of the fibers ranged from 0.1 μ to 80 μ; in each case the larger fibers being in the dorsal portion of the connective. In most species the smaller fibers were most numerous; with increasing diameter the fibers became less numerous. The total number of fibers ranged from 1,500 to 9,600. This interspecies difference is primarily due to variance in the number of very fine fibers. Unusual patterns of fiber distribution appeared in Crangon and Callinectes, which had no fibers of very small diameter, in Pagurus with a large bundle of such fine fibers, and in Grapsus, which had several giant fibers. In some of the species the peculiar fiber distributions appear to be related to particular adaptations.