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Science 9 May 1980:
Vol. 208. no. 4444, pp. 609 - 610
DOI: 10.1126/science.208.4444.609
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Articles

Gutless Bivalves

ROBERT G. B. REID 1 and FRANK R. BERNARD 2

1 Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada V8W 2Y2
2 Department of the Environment, Pacific Biological Station, Nanaimo, British Columbia V9R 5K6

A new benthic species of the protobranch bivalve genus Solemya, from the northeastern Pacific Ocean, lacks a gut. It has no internal digestive enzymatic apparatus; nor is there any provision for the secretion of enzymes into the mantle cavity for extraorganismic digestion. The most likely nutritional mechanism for such an animal is the active absorption of dissolved organic molecules from the environment by the large ctenidial lamellae. These are well provided with blood, cleansed of sediment by cilia, and have phosphatases in their epithelial cells. Solemya borealis may also be gutless.

Submitted on October 29, 1979
Revised on February 21, 1980


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Chemoautotrophic Potential of the Hydrothermal Vent Tube Worm, Riftia pachyptila Jones (Vestimentifera).
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