Roles of maturation-promoting factor, mitogen-activated protein kinases, and protein neosynthesis during
nemertean GVBD
Opisthobranch embryology involves spiral, typically holoblastic, cleavage, which is highly conserved within annelids, molluscs, and
nemerteans (Wilson, 1892; Casteel, 1904; Thompson, 1958; Maslakova et al., 2004a, b; Nielson, 2004).
Members of the genus Malacobdella are characterized by a flat body and a terminal simple sucker at the posterior end of the body; the sucker enables the attachment of the
nemertean to the host mantle tissues ensheathing the mantle cavity.
At the 8-cell stage, animal cells (micromeres) are larger than the vegetal macromeres, similar to all
nemerteans but unlike most annelids (Shankland and Savage, 1997).
polyhaline) nor
nemertean infestation (yes/no) significantly affected mass specific respiration.
The original motivation to study palaeonemertean and hoplonemertean transitory epidermis was a hypothesis that it may represent a remnant of the pilidial development in the ancestral
nemertean. This turned out not to be the case in the palaeonemertean species Carinoma tremaphorus (Masla-kova et al., 2004a, b); instead we discovered a vestigial prototroch.
In the laboratory, the
nemertean consumed all the foods with an animal origin that were offered, including unidentified marine nematodes, Tubifex sp., Saccocirrus gabrillae Marcus, 1946, Capitella capitata (Fabricius, 1780), meat of the shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (Boone, 1931), and meat of crabs from the genus Grapsus.
The
nemertean, Carcinonemertes carcinophilia (Kolliker).
They have been reported to parasitize acoels, platyhelminthes, annelids, molluscs,
nemerteans, echinoderms, and chordates; and it has been suggested that they are present in the host animals as multinucleate plasmodia (Slyusarev and Miller, 1998).
LOADED Despite its airy looks, this
nemertean is built to hunt.
So you get to take a plunge into the icy Antarctic, with Discovery's panel of wildlife experts, to locate thousands of pink starfish, urchins and monster
nemertean worms (also known as ribbon worms) feeding on a dead seal under a blanket of permanent ice.
Similarly, at the end of a six-month study of the effects of experimental trawling, the polychaete Terebellides atlantis and the
nemertean Cerebratulus lacteus had not yet returned to pretrawling levels of abundance (Sparks-McConkey and Watling, 2001).