Notes on the Early Stages of two Polychaetes, Nephthys hombergi Lamarck and Pectinaria koreni Malmgren

Abstract

Trochosphekes of Nephthys hombergi Lamarck are readily obtainable at Plymouth when the adult worms are mature from June to September. The worms are dug out of the muddy sand on the lower regions of the shore, and their eggs and sperms obtained by slitting open the body cavity. Fertilizations are easily made in glass finger-bowls of clean sea-water. Although apparently ripe worms have been kept under sea-water circulation in the laboratory, and under a variety of conditions, none has ever been induced to spawn naturally. After some days the body walls of some individuals have split along the back and shed their genital products in that way; these, however, were probably unhealthy and abnormal. A high percentage of the eggs got by cutting open the worms have fertilized and given rise to cultures of strongly swimming larvæ. During the summers of 1932–34 much time and effort were expended in numerous attempts to rear these larvæ, but in no single instance was success obtained. It had been hoped to collect material for a detailed histological study of the development, for it may be of a straightforward and simple type that would throw light on various problems of Polychæte embryology. Although these hopes have not been realized it seems of value to describe the trochosphere of which no entirely satisfactory account exists, in spite of a few references to it by previous writers.