Remarks on the cloaca and on the copulatory organs of the Amniota / by Hans Gadow.

  • Gadow, Hans Friedrich, 1855-1928.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the cloaca and on the copulatory organs of the Amniota / by Hans Gadow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    microphyes (one of the Elephantine Tortoises) each canal was continued as a round tube inside and along the walls of the groove of the penis and ended blindly in its glans ; when injected, or blown up from the peritoneal end, they admitted easily my fifth finger. Side branches or openings towards the outside, through the penis, did not exist, nor was it possible to force any fluid or air into the corpora cavernosa, although the specimen was fresh. This agrees with Fritsch’s account of a male Testudo elephantopus, and with Mayer’s males of Testudo grceca and of Chelone midas. In a large and likewise fresh female Chelys matamata the canals extended along and in the ventral cloacal wall to open near the glans of the very rudimentary clitoris; they admitted a crow’s quill throughout their length. The preparation is now in the Cambridge Museum. A female specimen of Testudo grceca (Cambridge collection) likewise shows a bristle passed through the canal. In the males I found the abdominal opening very narrow, whilst the canals in the penis are wide and terminate blindly in the glans. This agrees with Mayer’s male specimens, and with Lataste’s male Testudo nemorcdis, who, however, came to the conclusion that the canals never opened externally. Regarding the females, my observations completely agree with Anderson’s experi- ments made on females of Trionyx, Chitra, Batagur, Emys. To sum up, the peritoneal canals in female Chelonians open into the vestibulum cloacm on or near the base of the clitoris. In the males they extend, without having communication with the cavities of the corpora cavernosa, and without ramifications, through the penis, and either terminate blindly in the glans (Testudo elephantopus, T. microphyes, T. grceca, T. nemoralis, Chelone midas), or they open into the cloaca through a small orifice “ situated at the base of the glans and close to the inside of the genito-urinal groove.” Anderson (Gecemyda, Emys, Trionyx).* Probably all the Chelcnia possessed open peritoneal canals. Considering the small size and the position of the clitoris, it is not astonishing that the canals remain more superficial and retain their openings, whilst they are completely surrounded by the much larger male organ, and that their terminal orifices sometimes become closed. It is, we trust, not too hasty a generalisation to say now that the canals are closed in the males of the exclusively terrestrial and marine species (Chersidoe and Cheloniidae), but that they are open in all females and in the amphibiotic and fresh- water Chelonians. The function of these canals has always been a puzzle. That they have a function is more than probable. I observed in a female Chelys a condition similar to that mentioned by Anderson in other species : “ The peritoneal canals have their inner walls more or less coloured near their distal ends with fine dark lines of the same * Hoffmann says that according to Anderson the canals open. outwardly also in the male of Testudo platynotus, which of course would be a rather serious exception to the other Testudines, but Anderson never mentions a male Testudo.