Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-2s2w2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-13T08:09:15.496Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The anatomy of the prosobranch Trichotropis borealis Broderip & Sowerby, and the systematic position of the Capulidae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

Alastair Graham
Affiliation:
The Department of Zoology, University of Reading

Extract

The anatomy of some members of the family Calyptraeidae has been adequately described by previous workers (Kleinsteuber, 1913; Giese, 1915; Moritz, 1938), and aconsiderable amount of information has been published on the feeding and the unusual reproductive activities of Crepidula (Orton, 1912; Coe, 1944) Of the anatomy and way of living of the members of those other families of gastropods (Trichotropidae and Capulidae) that Thiele (1929) has unitedwith the calyptraeids in his Stirps Calyptraeacea, much less is known. Orton (1912) and Yonge (1938) have described the feeding mechanism of Capulus ungaricus; and the anatomy of Thyca, a parasitic member of the same family, has been briefly described by Koehler & Vaney (1912). Nothing seems to be known of the anatomy or way of life of members of the Trichotropidae. Yet an investigation of some of these points seems overdue in the lightof Lebour's discovery (1937) that Capulus passes through an echinospira larval stage. This stage does not occur in other members of the Calyptraeacea, although present in two other groups of the mesogastropods, the Lamellariacea and the Cypraeacea. The idea at once presents itself that the capulids may perhaps be more accurately classified as members of one or other of these two groups rather than as members of the Calyptraeacea. The work recorded in the following pages was directed towards answering this question, and would suggest that the original classification is the more correct. The names used are those of Winckworth (1932).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1954

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)