The Larval Stages of Simnia patula

Abstract

Simnia patula (Pennant)=0vula is common feeding on Ahyoniwm digitatum and on Eunicella verrucosa, trawled in Plymouth waters. Mr. E. A. Todd records in the 1904 Plymouth Fauna List (Plymouth Marine Invertebrate Fauna, Journal of the Marine Biological Association, VII, 1904), which is quoted in the new fauna list (1931, Marine Biological Association), that “spawn probably belonging to this species has been found in April, June-July.” This spawn is also well known to other members of the staff of the Laboratory and it is often found with the Simnia itself. It is now quite certain that it is the spawn of this mollusc, for it has been deposited in a plunger-jar on the glass and on Alcyonium (Jan. 19/20, 1932), and hatched out Feb. 21/22, 1932; it has been hatched out in the Laboratory, the larvae distinguished in the plankton and reared until the crawling stage in a plunger-jar; and young stages which bridge the gulf from larva to adult have also been found. The adults will live for months in a plunger-jar feeding voraciously on Alcyonium. The life-history is described here for the first time. It is very interesting because it is quite unlike that of Trivia euro-pea recently described (Lebour, 1931b), although the two are placed in the same family. Trivia bites holes in compound ascidians and lays its eggs in vase-shaped capsules embedded up to the neck in the ascidian, and these hatch out into larvae having accessory shells rather like those of Lamellaria but with distinct differences. Simnia lays its eggs in a single layer of capsules, spreading over the Alcyonium for an inch or more in an irregular roundish mass (Text-figure 1).