| Author Title Journal |
Levetzow KGv (1943) Zur Biologie and Verdaunngsphysiologie der Polycladen Turbellarien. Zool. Anz. 141: 189-196 |
Abstract / Notes
Little is known of the biology of polyclads. Copulation was observed for the 1st time in a cotylean (Thysanozoon). Following courtship similar to that of slugs, copulation occurred by way of the genital pores. T. brocchi feeds chiefly on Ciona, partially inclosing it by the protruded pharynx and sucking in its viscera. Digestion appears to be largely extracellular and apparently the resulting brei is somehow taken into the poly-clad's tissues, and later digested in intracellular fashion in the intestinal epithelium. Cells presumed to be phagocytic were seen free in the intestinal lumen. In Acotylea somewhat different conditions obtain. Stylochoplana feeds on snails, reducing them to a brei within their shells; the brei is then taken into the intestinal branches. This process occupies 10-20 hrs. The resting intestinal epithelium of Stylochoplana fills the lumen as a vacuolated syncytium but in feeding becomes very flat and the lumen contains free cells, alleged to be the cells of the intestinal epithelium.
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