A porphyrin pigment in the integument ofArion ater(L.)

Abstract

MacMunn (1886) extracted a porphyrin from the integument of the starfishAsterias rubens—then known asUraster rubens—and he considered that this and similar pigments which he had obtained from the slugArion empiricorumand the coelenteratesFlabellum variabileandFungia symmetricawere identical with the haematoporphyrin of Hoppe-Seyler (1871), which was then the only porphyrin known. Dhéré & Baumeler (1928 a) confirmed the presence of a porphyrin inArion empiricorum, but did not specify which porphyrin they had found. Kennedy & Vevers (1953), working at the Plymouth Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association, found that the pigment of the integumentof Asterias rubensL. was protoporphyrin, and in a further survey of the porphyrins of marine invertebrates (Kennedy & Vevers, 1954), they examined the integuments of two molluscs,Aplysia punctataCuvier andDuvaucelia plebeia(Johnston), and showed that each contained uroporphyrin I. This pigment was also found by Kennedy & Vevers (1956) to be present in the integument of the tectibranch molluscAkera bullata(O. F. Müller). The present paper describes the isolation and identification of the po phyrin from the integument of the black garden slugArion ater(L.).Arion empiricorumwas a synonym introduced by Férussac, Férussac & Deshayes (1819–51) to cover the numerous colour and pattern varieties of the slug more generally known asArion ater. The work appears here since it is a continuation of investigations of mollusc pigments initiated in the Plymouth Laboratory, the results of which have already been published in thisJournal.