Abstract
POSSESSION of a cloaca is presumed to be a primitive vertebrate character that has been lost independently four times—in lampreys, chimaeras, actinopterygians and eutherian mammals—as the adult morphology of the urinary-genital-rectal openings is different in each group. Hagfishes, sharks, lungfishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, monotremes, marsupials and Aplodontia rufa all possess a cloaca1. Millot and Anthony2 stated that the male Latimeria has a true cloaca whereas the female has a rectal opening separate from a common urinary-genital opening. We report here evidence that neither male nor female Latimeria chalumnae has a cloaca.
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References
Romer, A. S. The Vertebrate Body 4th edn (Saunders, Philadelphia, 1970).
Millot, J. & Anthony, J. Bull. Mus. natn. Hist. nat., Paris Ser. 2, 32, 287–289 (1960).
Millot, J., Anthony, J. & Robineau, D. Bull. Mus. natn. Hist, nat., Paris Ser. 3, 39, 533–549 (1972).
Smith, C. L., Rand, C. S., Schaeffer, B. & Atz, J. W. Science 190, 1105–1106 (1975).
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DINGERKUS, G., MOK, H. & LAGIOS, M. The living coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae does not have a cloaca. Nature 276, 261–262 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/276261b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/276261b0
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