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Note on a Conger with Abnormal Gonad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2009

Extract

Among a sample of seven small Conger, from 58 to 77 cm. in length, obtained from the Plymouth Fish Quay on 31st March, one was found with unsymmetrical reproductive organs. The other six were immature females with the normal pair of ovaries. The abnormal specimen has a right gonad quite similar to the ovaries of females at the same stage of maturity. It is bandlike in form, extending along the whole length of the abdominal cavity. The inner or left side is covered with smooth peritoneal epithelium (mesoarium). The greater part of the surface of the right (outer) side is raised into transverse lamellæ containing the as yet little-developed ova embedded in fat-tissue. For about one to two millimetres from its free edge, the organ consists of a strip of fat-tissue quite free from germinal cells, and there is a similarly constituted longitudinal fold—here and there divided into a subsidiary one—extending parallel to and about 2 mm. from the free edge and bordering the lamellated germinal area. The ovary is 17.5 cm. long, its greatest width 12 mm., and the widest part of the lamellated area is about 7 mm.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1908

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