Larval Shell Muscles in the Abalone Haliotis kamtschatkana.

Abstract

I used light and electron microscopy to investigate shell-attached muscles in larvae of Haliotis kamtschatkana Jonas, 1845, because an early description of these muscles in H. tuberculata by Crofts (1937, 1955) has featured prominently in theories about gastropod evolution. Larval shell muscles in H. kamtschatkana can be grouped into two categories. The first category consists of the larval retractor muscle (LRM) and the accessory larval retractor muscle (ACC); these are striated muscles in which myofilaments begin differentiating before the head and foot rotate relative to the protoconch (this rotation is known as ontogenetic torsion). Collectively, these muscles ultimately insert on tissues within the larval head and mantle, but the ACC and mantle fibers of the LRM degenerate as metamorphic competence is achieved. The second category consists of two nonstriated pedal muscles that differentiate after cephalopodial rotation. The left pedal muscle is anchored on the back of the protoconch, to the left of the shell-attachment plaque for the LRM. It projects into the foot primarily, but also gives rise to muscle slips extending into the mantle fold. The right pedal muscle is anchored on a calcareous septum secreted along the visceral rim of the protoconch. The new data force a reconsideration of the ancestral homologues of larval shell muscles in abalone, because Crofts may have misidentified the accessory larval retractor muscle as a precursor of one of the later pedal muscles.