Abstract
FROM the results of an investigation using both the light and the electron microscope Nishioka, Hagadorn and Bern1 concluded that the epistellar body of Octopus bimaculatus(?) found off the coast of California was probably a photoreceptive organ. Present within the lumen of the epistellar body are processes equipped with microvilli; these are often organized into rhabdomes as in the eyes of many protestome invertebrates2. In this species of Octopus, as well as in others studied, the epistellar body is only barely discernible as a pale orange spot at the base of the posterior stellar nerves of the stellate ganglion. In Eledone, however, the similarly located epistellar body is much larger and more intensely orange than in Octopus. Even with light microscopy the reticular pattern suggestive of rhabdomeric organization was apparent at the periphery of the lumen. The morphology indicative of a photoreceptive function and the large amount of pigment observed provided the basis for the present investigation of the biochemical nature of the pigment of the epistellar body of Eledone moschata. The details of this study and related information on vesicles associated with the nervous system of cephalopod molluscs will be reported elsewhere3.
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NISHIOKA, R., YASUMASU, I. & BERN, H. Photoreceptive Features of Vesicles associated with the Nervous System of Cephalopods. Nature 211, 1181 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1038/2111181a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2111181a0
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