Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, Vol s3-100, 539-555, Copyright © 1959 by Company of Biologists

The Histology and Activities of the Tube-feet of Echinocyamus pusillus

¹ Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, University Museum, Oxford

The histology of the suckered, buccal sensory, and respiratory tube-feet and their ampullae, where they occur, of the clypeasteroid sea-urchin Echinocyamus pusillus is described. Each suckered tube-foot possesses two sets of special muscles for attachment and detachment, a ring of mucous glands to assist in attachment, and a ring of sensory cilia. The stem retractors are in four columns, whose differential contraction provides the means of postural movement relative to the test. The ampullae of these tube-feet are exceedingly thin-walled, apparently musculo-epithelial, with anastomosing contractile elements. The canal between tube-foot and ampulla contains a swollen coelomic epithelium which may help to maintain the nerve relationships of the system. The activity of the suckered tube-feet is compared with that of the tubefeet of the starfish, Asterias rubens. The buccal tube-feet, larger than the suckered tube-feet, have large disks underlain by a thick nerve plexus supported by transverse fibres; a ring of sensory cilia surrounds the disk. They have no mucous glands and no suckers, and are presumably entirely sensory, probably both tactile (the cilia) and chemoreceptive (the disk). The respiratory tube-feet are thin-walled sacs, the walls consisting of an outer ciliated and an inner non-ciliated (coelomic) epithelium with cross-connexions for support; where the coelomic epithelium lines the pair of canals through the test it is heavily ciliated. In the specializations of its tube-feet this urchin is shown to share some features with the regular urchins and others with the spatangoids.