Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, Vol s3-97, 235-249, Copyright © 1956 by Company of Biologists

The Blood Vascular System of Nephtys (Annelida, Polychaeta)

¹ Department of Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, California

The four longitudinal vessels of the circulatory system of Nephtys californiensis are dorsal, sub-intestinal, and neural, the latter being paired. There is a complete longitudinal circulation; the dorsal vessel communicates with the sub-intestinal by way of the proboscidial circulation and with the neural by way of the circum-oral vessels. In each middle and posterior segment segmental vessels from each of the longitudinal trunks carry blood to and from the parapodia and body-wall. The segmental circulation is completed by a circum-intestinal vessel connecting the dorsal and subintestinal vessels in each segment and an intersegmental branch connecting the dorsal and sub-intestinal segmental vessels. A trans-septal branch of the neural segmental vessel communicates with the sub-intestinal segmental vessel. This arrangement is modified in anterior segments which house the muscular, eversible pharynx, and no blood-vessels cross the coelom except by running through the body-wall. On anatomical grounds and by comparison with other polychaetes it seems likely that segmental is subordinate to longitudinal circulation. There are no endothelial capillaries such as have been described in some other polychaetes; instead there are numerous blindending vessels the walls of which are composed of the same three layers as other vessels and which are probably contractile. The dorsal vessel, where it is in contact with the ventral surface of the supra-oesophageal ganglion, forms a plexus in close association with a modified part of the brain capsule and a special axonal tract within the ganglion. It is thought that by way of this ‘cerebro-vascular complex’, hormones produced in the neurosecretory cells of the brain pass into the blood-stream.