Abstract
THE ability of elasmobranchs to keep the salt concentration of the body fluids lower than that of the environment is probably in part due to the activity of the rectal salt gland. In the spiny dogfish this gland secretes sodium chloride at about twice the concentration of the plasma1. In most dogfishes and rays the rectal gland is a single appendix-like organ, but in Hexanchus and Heptanchus it is built up of separate lobes. A still more primitive condition exists in Chimaera with several small clusters of grape-like glands in the wall of the hindmost part of the intestine2,3. The glands consist of branched secretory tubules surrounded by blood capillaries. The microscopic structure is simple and little specialized4, and supposedly these glands make a less-efficient salt excretory system than the type of rectal gland met with in the dogfish.
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FÄNGE, R., FUGELLI, K. Osmoregulation in Chimæroid Fishes. Nature 196, 689 (1962). https://doi.org/10.1038/196689a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/196689a0
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