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Undoubtedly both the Tunicates and Acrania have inherited the chorda from a common unsegmented stem-form; and these ancient, long-extinct ancestors of all the chordonia are our hypothetical Prochordonia.
We can say, for instance, that we have inherited the oldest organs of the body, the external skin and the internal coat of the alimentary system, from the Gastraeads; the nervous and muscular systems from the Platodes; the vascular system, the body-cavity, and the blood from the Vermalia; the chorda and the branchial gut from the Prochordonia; the articulation of the body from the Acrania; the primitive skull and the higher sense-organs from the Cyclostomes; the limbs and jaws from the Selachii; the five-toed foot from the Amphibia; the palate from the Reptiles; the hairy coat, the mammary glands, and the external sexual organs from the Pro-mammals.
In the unarticulated stem-forms of the Chordonia, which we have called the Prochordonia, the two coelom-pouches, and therefore also the muscle-plates of their walls, were not yet segmented. This segmentation of the muscles was the momentous historical process with which vertebration, and the development of the vertebrate stem, began.
These instructive Copelata, comparable to permanent Ascidia-larvae, come next to the extinct Prochordonia, those ancient worms which we must regard as the common ancestors of the Tunicates and Vertebrates.
As we find this highly characteristic differentiation of the gut into two different sections in all the Vertebrates and all the Tunicates, we may conclude that it was also found in their common ancestors, the Prochordonia especially as even the Enteropneusts have it. But the number presently increases in the former. In the Craniotes, however, it decreases still further.
In this fact, and the fact we have already established that the Gastraea has been evolved from the hollow vesicle of the one-layered Blastaea, and this again from the original unicellular stem-form, we have obtained a solid basis for our study of evolution. The second section, that leads from the Gastraea to the Prochordonia, is much more difficult and obscure.
Within the vertebrate stem there is, as we have already seen, so complete an agreement in structure and embryology that it is impossible to doubt their phylogenetic unity. In this case the evidence is much clearer and more abundant. The first three features are shared by the Vertebrates with the ascidia-larvae and the Prochordonia; the fourth is peculiar to them.
As we saw there, the unarticulated Tunicates and the articulated Vertebrates must be regarded as two independent stems, that have developed in divergent directions. But the common root of the two stems, the extinct group of the Prochordonia, must be sought in the vermalia stem; and of all the living Vermalia those we have considered give us the safest clue to their origin.
As both the Tunicates and the Vertebrates develop from the same chordula, we may infer that there was a corresponding common ancestor of both stems. We may call this the Chordaea, and the corresponding stem-group the Prochordonia or Prochordata. We shall see presently how this conclusion is justified in the present condition of morphological science.
This first structure of the human heart, enclosing a very simple cavity, corresponds to the tunicate-heart, and is a reproduction of that of the Prochordonia, but it now divides into two, and subsequently into three, compartments; this reminds us for a time of the heart of the Cyclostomes and fishes.
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