Observations on the ciliary currents of the jelly-fish Aurelia aurita L.

Abstract

SUMMARY The jelly-fish Aurelia aurita possesses external and internal ciliary currents that play a large part in food collection and in the transport of food, reproductive products and excretory matter. Adults feed on relatively small organisms, which are collected in mucus on all external surfaces and eventually passed to the inner surfaces of the oral arms. The inner surfaces of the oral arms bear two ciliated tracts which operate simultaneously in opposite directions. The lateral tract carries food materials proximally towards the gastric pouches, but is capable of rejecting inedible matter. The basal tract carries excretory matter distally, away from the gastric pouches and canals to the exterior. Rejection reactions are also found in the gastric pouches and radial canals, parts of which have currents moving in opposite directions on the roof and on the floor. These opposing currents appear to be derived from the system in the ephyra stage, where the circulation in the wide gastric cavity and blind-ending canals is maintained partly by centripetal currents on the floor and centrifugal currents on the roof. The directions of the main currents remain constant throughout the larval stages to the adult, although slight variations are introduced by morphological changes. The currents also remain the same during spawning, when the eggs and sperm leave the gastric pouches by the normal excretory path. Many of the ciliary currents found in Aurelia are present in other semaeostome and rhizostome medusae, but only in Aurelia do the umbrella surfaces and currents play a large part in food collection.