Abstract
THE Liverpool Marine Biological Committee's memoirs have proved of great service to biologists and a new volume is assured of a welcome. Vol. 33 deals with three tubicolous Polychæte worms, illustrating progressive degrees of adaptation to the sedentary habit. Amphitrite johnstoni lies hidden under rocky clefts and stones, where it makes a temporary burrow in the sand. Sabella pavonina stands upright in the mud and constructs a neat tube of selected and agglutinated mud particles lined by a smooth glistening secretion like flexible porcelain. Pomatoceros triqueter forms a rigid tube of calcareous matter, fixed to a rock and decumbent, the animal lying on its back within the tube. The last species is of importance to the general worker because it is used for artificial fertilization, its trochophore larva being easy to rear under laboratory conditions. Miss Thomas rightly makes it her main subject for investigation.
Pomatoceros, Sabella and Amphitrite
By Joan G. Thomas. Department of Oceanography, University of Liverpool: L.M.B.C. Memoirs on Typical British Marine Plants and Animals, 33.) Pp. vii + 88 + 11 plates. (Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool; London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., 1940.) 10s. 6d. net.
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Pomatoceros, Sabella and Amphitrite. Nature 147, 73 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/147073a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/147073a0