Art. V.—Notes on the Structure of Struthiolaria papulosa.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 15, 1882, Page 117

Art. V.—Notes on the Structure of Struthiolaria papulosa. By Professor F. W. Hutton. [Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 7th September, 1882.] Plate XII. Last year Mr. J. D. Enys kindly gave me two specimens, male and female, of Struthiolaria papulosa which he had collected at Nelson and preserved in spirit. All that is known at present of the structure of Struthiolaria is contained in the description of the animal of S. crenulata (= S. australis) in the Zoology of the Voyage of the Astrolabe (vol. ii., p. 430, pl. 31, fig. 7–9), in which a female is figured, and a description of the lingual dentition in the Trans. N.Z. Institute, vol. xiv., p. 163, pl. vi., fig. h. A few remarks on the specimens collected by Mr. Enys will, therefore, be interesting. The œsophagus is long, expanding gradually into the stomach (fig. 3 m.); the intestine turns abruptly forward to the heart, passes through a loop of the anterior aorta, and proceeds at once to the anus, which freely projects from the mantle. The odontophore is very small and easily overlooked. The liver is large and greenish or greenish-brown, it lies on the lower side of the spiral portion of the animal, the upper side being occupied by the reproductive organs; the hepatic duct opens at the pyloric end of the stomach, just where the intestine begins. The heart is large, and pale-yellow in colour. The gill is single attached to the mantle along the left side, the plates being very long, stiff, and free; they appear to me to be simple, and not “boutonnées” as stated by Quoy. The renal organ lies at the base of the gill, and a duct, formed by a fold of skin, leads from it over the anterior portion of the body inside the rectum (fig. 1–3 g); in the male it opens at the base of the penis; in the female, between the right tentacle and the anus. The male reproductive organs consist of a scarlet-lake testis and a long vas-deferens formed by a fold of skin running along the anterior part of the body, inside the renal duct, to the base of the right tentacle and ends in a long slender non-retractile curved penis (fig. 1–2 d). In the female the ovary is of a cream colour; the oviduct is like the vas-deferens, but it ends behind the right tentacle in an expanded fold of skin. In my paper of last year I figured the different teeth isolated from each other, I therefore append to this paper a sketch of the teeth in their natural position (fig. 4.) I have also added a figure of the operculum (fig. 5), as it is incorrectly given by H. and A. Adams in their Genera of Recent Mollusca, and also an outline of the animal of S. australis from the Voyage of the Astrolabe.

Explanation of Plate XII. Fig. 1. Struthiolaria papulosa. Male. Fig. 2. " " " " Branchial cavity laid open. Fig. 3. " " Female. Branchial and abdominal cavities laid open. All three drawings are taken from spirit specimens. a, foot; b, operculum; c, rostrum; d, penis; e, vas-deferens; f, oviduct; g, renal duct; h, mantle; i, branchia; k, columellar muscle; l, siphon; m, stomach; n, anus; o, heart. Fig. 4. Struthiolaria papulosa. Dentition magnified 160 times. Fig. 5. " " " Operculum magnified two diameters. Fig. 6. " " australis. Living animal, after Quoy. (Female.)