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Class APPENDICULARIA


Compiler and date details

P. Kott, Queensland Museum, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Introduction

Appendicularians are small free swimming planktonic tunicates, their bodies consisting of a short trunk and a tail (containing the notochord cells) which is present through the life of the individual. Glandular (oikoplast) epithelium on the trunk secretes the mucous house which encloses the whole or part of the body and contains the complex filters which strain food from the water driven through them (Deibel 1998; Flood & Deibel 1998). Unlike other tunicates, there is no peribranchial cavity and a pair of pharyngeal perforations (spiracles) surrounded by a ring of cilia open directly to the exterior from the floor of the pharynx.

The early studies of these organisms, begun with Chamisso's description of Appendicularia flagellum Chamisso, 1821, were confounded by questions of its phylogenetic affinity. Chamisso classified his species with medusoids, Mertens (1830) with molluscs, and Quoy & Gaimard (1833) with zoophytes. Only in 1851 were appendicularians correctly assigned to the Tunicata by Huxley. At the time of this placement, the existence of more than one taxon was only just beginning to be recognised, and despite Huxley's work, they were not universally regarded as adult organisms—some authors still insisting that they were ascidian larvae or a free swimming generation of the sessile ascidians (Fenaux 1993). Subsequently, these questions were resolved by the work of Fol (1872) on material from the Straits of Messina, which forms the basis of later studies on the large collections of the great expeditions of the 19th century that revealed their true diversity in the oceanic plankton.

Appendiculariadae Brown, 1862 (at family level) and Appendicularia (as a tribe) were the first collective names given to this group of organisms. Fol (1872) applied the family name Appendiculaires to the group. Appendicularia predates Copelata Haeckel, 1866, Larvacea Herdman, 1882 and other names at ordinal or class level (see Fenaux 1993). It is, accordingly, the name given to the class in the present work.

Lohmann (1892–1931) and Lohmann & Bückmann (1926) made important contributions to the study of the group, as did Aida (1907–1908) and Tokioka (1940 et seq.) in Japanese waters, and Ritter (1905) and Essenberg (1926) off California. Fenaux et al. (1990) published a bibliography and Fenaux (1993) completely revised the group and reviewed its history. The taxonomy and biology are reviewed in Bone (1998).

The classification within the class is generally that originally proposed by Lohmann (1896a) and followed, with minor modifications, by later workers. The families are Oikopleuridae Lohmann, 1896a, Fritillariidae Seeliger, 1895 and Kowalevskiidae Lahille, 1888. They are distinguished from one another by characteristics of body shape, endostyle, pharyngeal perforations, stomach wall, oikoplast epithelium and tail.

In Australia, the appendicularians of the eastern coast collected by the CSIRO research vessel FRV Warreen between the Tropic of Capricorn and South Australia were studied and recorded by Thompson (1945). A few species were recorded from Shark Bay and off Fremantle by Lohmann (1909), but there is no systematic study on this group in western Australian waters or in the tropical or the southern coastal waters of the Australian continent. So far, no indigenous species are known.

As with the thaliaceans, the geographic ranges of most species are great, being defined by the course of the relevant ocean currents rather than by geographic regions. Tokioka (1960) reviewed the geographic distribution of species in the class.

The search for the location of type specimens of the class has been unsuccessful. In particular, the collections of the Humboldt Plankton Expedition (Lohmann) and the Deutsch Tiefsee Expedition (Lohmann 1892–1931) have not been found. At this stage, no relevant larvacean type specimens have been located in the Natural History Museum (London), U.S. National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.), the American Museum of Natural History (New York), the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, (Geneva), the Natural History Museum (Vienna), the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (Paris), the Naturhistoriske Riksmuseum (Stockholm), Museum für Natuurkunde (Berlin) or the Japanese collections. Hopefully, the publication of this section of the Catalogue will advertise the need for information on the location of the type specimens in this taxon of the Tunicata, although it is probable that many were lost during World War II (Fenaux 1993).

 

General References

Aida, T. 1907. Appendicularia of Japanese waters. Journal of the College of Science, Imperial University of Tokyo 23(5): 1-25 pls i-iv

Aida, T. 1907. Appendicularia of Japanese waters. Journal of the College of Science, Imperial University of Tokyo 23(5): 1-25 pls i-iv (–1908)

Alldredge, A. 1978. Appendicularians. Scientific American 235: 95-102 [Copyright 1976 by Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved]

Bone, Q. (ed.) 1998. The Biology of Pelagic Tunicates. New York : Oxford University Press 340 pp.

Chamisso, A. von in Chamisso, A. von & Eysenhardt, C.W. 1821. De animalibus quisbusdam e classe Vermium Linneana. In, Circumnavigatione Terrae, auspicante Comite N. Romanzoff, duce Ottone de Kotzbue, annis 1815–1818, peracta. observatio. Fasciculus secundus, reliquos vermes continens. Nova Acta Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae Germanicae Naturae Curiosorum 10(2): 543-574 pl. xxxi

Deibel, D. 1998. Feeding and metabolism of Appendicularia. pp. 139-150 in Bone, Q. (ed.). The Biology of Pelagic Tunicates. New York : Oxford University Press 340 pp.

Essenberg, C.E. 1926. Copelata from the San Diego Region. University of California Publications in Zoology 28(22): 399-521

Fenaux, R. 1993. The classification of the Appendicularia (Tunicata): History and current state. Mémoires de l'Institut Océanographique, Monaco 17: i-vii, 1-123

Fenaux, R., Galt, C.P. & Carpino-Lancre, J. 1990. Bibliographie des Appendiculaires (1821–1989). Mémoires de l'Institut Océanographique, Monaco 15: i-xix, 1-129

Flood, R. & Deibel, D. 1998. The appendicular house. pp. 105-124 in Bone, Q. (ed.). The Biology of Pelagic Tunicates. New York : Oxford University Press 340 pp.

Fol, H. 1872. Etudes sur les Appendiculaires du détroit de Messine. Mémoires de la Société de Physique et d'Histoire Naturelle de Genève 21(2): 445-499 pls i-xi

Fol, H. 1874. Note sur un nouveau genre d'Appendiculaires. Archives de Zoologie Expérimentale et Générale 3(Notes et revue): XLIX-LIII, pl. 18 (figs 1-5)

Haeckel, E. 1866. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen allgemeine Entwickelungsgeschichte der Organismen. Berlin : G. Reimer 462 pp. [8 pls]

Herdman, W.A. 1882. Report on the Tunicata collected during the voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873–1876. Pt I, Ascidiae simplices. Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger 1873–1876, Zoology 6(17): 1-296

Huxley, T.H. 1851. Remarks upon Appendicularia and Doliolum, two genera of the Tunicata. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 2: 595-605 pl. xviii

Lahille, F. 1888. Etude systématique des tuniciers. Comptes Rendus de l'Association Française pour l'Avancement des Sciences 1887(2): 667-677

Leuckart, R. 1854. Zur Anatomie und Entwicklungeschichte der tunicaten Beschreibung einer Schwaermencker Ascidienlarve (Appendicularia albicans). Zool. Unters Gressen 2: 77-93

Lohmann, H. 1892. Vorberichte über die Appendicularien der Plankton-Expedition. Ergebnisse der Plankton-Expedition der Humboldt-Stiftung 1(A): 139-149 (–1931)

Lohmann, H. 1896a. Die Appendicularien der Plankton-Expedition. Ergebnisse der Plankton-Expedition der Humboldt-Stiftung 2(E.C.): 1-148 pls i-xxiv

Lohmann, H. 1896. Die Appendicularien der Expedition. Zoologische Ergebnisse von der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde in Berlin ausgesandtm Grönland-Expedition. Bibl. Zool 20(2): 25-44

Lohmann, H. 1905. Die Appendicularien des arktischen und antarctischen Gebiets, ihr Beziehungen zueinander und zu den arten des Gebietes der warmen Ströme. Zoologische Jahrbücher Suppl. 8: 353-382

Lohmann, H. 1909. Copelata und Thaliacea. pp. 143-149 in Michaelsen, W. & Hartmeyer, R. (eds). Die Fauna Südwest-Australiens. 2(10) Jena : Fischer.

Lohmann, H. 1933. Appendicularia. pp. 3-192 in Kükenthal, W. & Krumbach, T. (eds). Handbuch der Zoologie. Berlin : Walter de Gruyter Vol. 5(2).

Lohmann, H. & Bückmann, A. 1926. Die Appendicularien der Deutschen Südpolar-Expedition 1901 bis 1903. Ergebnisse der Deutschen Südpolar-Expedition 18(Zool. 10): 63-231

Mertens, C.H. 1830. Beschreibung der Oikopleura, einer neuen Mollusken-Gattung. Mémoires de l'Academie Imperial de la Société des Sciences, Saint Pétersburg 6(1)2: 205-220 2 pls

Quoy, J.R.C. & Gaimard, J.P. 1833. Zoologie, Zoophytes pp. 304–306. in, Voyage de découvertes de l'Astrolabe 1824–1829 Vol. 4. Paris : Pilet Ainé.

Ritter, W.E. 1905. The pelagic Tunicata of the San Diego Region, excepting the Larvacea. University of California Publications in Zoology 2(3): 51-112 pls ii, iii

Seeliger, O. 1895. Appendicularien und Ascidien, Tunicata. Manteltiere. pp. 97-144 in Bronn, H.G. (ed.). Klassen und Ordnungen des Tier-Reichs. Leipzig : C.F. Winter Vol. 3 Suppl. 4–5.

Thompson, H. 1945. Pelagic Tunicates of Australia. Melbourne : Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 196 pp. 75 pls.

Tokioka, T. 1940. Some additional notes on the Japanese appendicularian fauna. Records of the Oceanographic Works in Japan 11(1): 1-26

Tokioka, T. 1960. Studies on the distribution of appendicularians and some thaliaceans of the North Pacific, with some morphological notes. Publications of the Seto Marine Biological Laboratory 8(2): 351-443

 

History of changes

Note that this list may be incomplete for dates prior to September 2013.
Published As part of group Action Date Action Type Compiler(s)
12-Feb-2010 (import)