Author(s)

Jung Jun Park, Jung Sick Lee, Yeon Gyu Lee, Jae Won Kim

Aquaculture Management Division, NFRDI, Busan, Korea.
Department of Aqualife Medicine, Chonnam National University, Yeosu, Korea.
Department of Marine Life-Science, Gangwon Provincial College, Gangneung, Korea.
Faculty of Marine Technology, Chonnam National University, Yeosu, Korea.

The shape and microscopic structure of the foot of the equilateral Venus, Gomphina veneriformis are described by light and electron microscopy along with the substrate conditions of their habitat. The habitat sediment of G. veneriformis is composed of sand (2 - 0.063 mm in diameter), mainly. The foot is wedge-shaped with multiple vertical furrows on the surface. Although the foot is composed of an epithelial layer, a connective tissue layer and a muscular layer, the boundary between the connective tissue and muscular layer is not clear. The epithelial layer was composed mostly of ciliated columnar epithelia and secretory cells. Epithelial cells forming the apical region of the fold were long columnar, while cells of the interfold were mostly short columnar. The cilia and microvilli were commonly observed on the free surface of epithelial cells, while tight junctions of apico-lateral aspect and membrane interdigitations were found between the epithelial cells. Secretory cells were found to contain acidic mucopolysaccharide, and were classified into two types in accordance with the shapes and ultrastructures of secretory granules. The muscle fibers were composed of thin and thick microfilaments, the proportions of which were 81.3% and 18.7%, respectively. It was determined that such morphology and structural characteristics of the foot of G. veneriformis would present advantageous conditions for borrowing into substrate and mobility.

Gomphina veneriformis; Microscopic Structure

J. Park, J. Lee, Y. Lee and J. Kim, "Micromorphology and Ultrastructure of the Foot of the Equilateral Venus Gomphina veneriformis (Bivalvia: Veneridae)," CellBio, Vol. 1 No. 1, 2012, pp. 11-16. doi: 10.4236/cellbio.2012.11002.