Facts and Arguments for Darwin by Fritz Muller
page 17 of 127 (13%)
page 17 of 127 (13%)
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The comprehension of the feet of the hind-body and tail in a single group (as "fausses pattes abdominales," or as "pleopoda") seems not to be justifiable. When there is a metamorphosis, they are probably always produced at different periods, and they are almost always quite different in structure and function. Even in the Amphipoda, in which the caudal feet usually resemble in appearance the last two pairs of abdominal feet, they are in general distinguished by some sort of peculiarity, and whilst the abdominal feet are reproduced in wearisome uniformity throughout the entire order, the caudal feet are, as is well-known, amongst the most variable parts of the Amphipoda.) And if at the present day the majority of the Crabs and Macrura, and indeed the Stalk-eyed Crustacea in general, pass through Zoea-like developmental states, and the same mode of transformation was to be ascribed to their ancestors, the same thing must also apply, if not to the immediate ancestors of the Amphipoda and Isopoda, at least to the common progenitors of these and the Stalk-eyed Crustacea. Any such assumption as this was, however, very hazardous, so long as not a single fact properly relating to the Edriophthalma could be adduced in its support, as the structure of this very coherent group seemed to be almost irreconcilable with many peculiarities of the Zoea. Thus, in my eyes, this point long constituted one of the chief difficulties in the application of the Darwinian views to the Crustacea, and I could scarcely venture to hope that I might yet find traces of this passage through the Zoea-form among the Amphipoda or Isopoda, and thus obtain a positive proof of the correctness of this conclusion. At this point Van Beneden's statement that a cheliferous Isopod (Tanais Dulongii), belonging, according to Milne-Edwards, to the same family as the common Asellus aquaticus, possesses a carapace like the Decapoda, directed my |
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