The embryology, metamorphosis, and muscle development of Schizocardium karankawa sp. nov. (Enteropneusta) from the Gulf of Mexico

Abstract

Abstract Schizocardium karankawa n. sp. has been collected from subtidal muds of the Laguna Madre, Texas, and the Mississippi coast, Gulf of Mexico. The Texas population is reproductive from early February to mid-April. Gametes are liberated by a small incision in a gonad. Oocyte germinal vesicle breakdown is increased in the presence of sperm, and the highest fertilization success was in the artificial seawater Jamarin U. Manually dechorionated embryos develop normally. Development was asynchronous via a tornaria larva, metamorphosis and maintained to the juvenile worm 6 gill-pore stage. Phalloidin-labeled late stage tornaria revealed retractor muscles that connect the pericardial sac with the apical tuft anteriorly, and the oesophagus ventrally, and muscles cells of the early mesocoels. The muscle development of early juvenile worms began with dorso-lateral trunk muscles, lateral trunk bands, and sphincters around the gill pores and anus. Adult worms are characterized by a stomochord that bifurcates anteriorly into paired vermiform processes, gill bars that extend almost the entire dorsal to ventral branchial region resulting in a narrow ventral hypobranchial ridge, and an elaborate epibranchial organ with six zones of discrete cell types. The trunk has up to three rows of liver sacs, and lateral gonads. The acorn worm evo-devo model species Saccoglossus kowalevskii, Ptychodera flava, and Schizocardium californicum are phylogenetically distant with disparate life histories. Differences of S. karnakawa from S. californicum include larval anal cilia, the number of gill pores and hepatic sacs, and elaborations of the heart-kidney-stomochord complex. Further comparative study of S. karankawa and S. californicum could help shed light on how development evolves at large and fine scales.