Annual maturation of the perivaginal gland of Oxychilus (Drouetia) atlanticus (...

• Author(s): Rodrigues, Armindo ; Martins, R.
• Date: 2003
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/1373
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade dos Açores
• Subject(s): Annual Maturation; Gland; Morphological; Cytological; Oxychilus (Drouetia) atlanticus
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

Copyright © The Malacological Society of London 2003. The family Zonitidae has a reproductive system, which is characterized by the presence of a perivaginal gland that, generally, surrounds the vaginal duct. The majority of works that make reference to this organ are taxonomic in nature, giving brief descriptions of the external shape of the gland and of its position in relation to other parts of the reproductive system. Rigby examined the histological structure of the perivaginal gland for the first time, studying the reproductive system of the zonitid Oxychilus cellarius (Müller). She reported that two types of glandular cells form this gland, without providing any structural or cytochemical characterization.