CADET HAND 201 



ROSS: From my experience, I think this is a failure of the nemato- 

 cysts to discharge. Anemones are usually very active when they 

 are responding to chemical stimuli and discharging their nemato- 

 cysts. If nematocysts were being discharged, in this case, one would 

 expect signs of this in the anemone's behavior. 



HAND: Davenport and Norris (Biol Bull. 115, 1958) working 

 with the anenome Stoichactis and the fish Amphiprion, which I be- 

 lieve were Philippine in origin, concluded that the nematocysts were 

 not discharging. When a single scale was removed, however, then 

 the fish gets it fast. As soon as the mucous layer is broken the 

 nematocysts respond and the animal is in trouble. 



MARTIN: In the experiment which Dr. Ross described, I won- 

 der if you are sure if the reaction of stickiness is a virtue of the 

 nematocysts or of the epithelium of the tentacles? 



ROSS: We managed to induce a nematocyst discharge by offering 

 small pieces of shell to tentacles, and observing under the binocu- 

 lars that a large number of nematocyst threads were attached to the 

 piece of shell. We also found that nematocysts were discharged 

 into "Cutex " impregnated with tiny shell fragments, but not into 

 "Cutex" alone used as a control. We were satisfied that it was a 

 nematocyst discharge when we witnessed the following pheneome- 

 non: You can present a shell to a Calliactis by bringing it up very 

 carefully to a single tentacle. If it sticks, that tentacle adheres so 

 strongly at the tip that you can lift up the whole animal by lifting 

 the shell. It is impressive to see one of these large anemones hang- 

 ing from the shell and attached only by the tip of a single tentacle. 

 I cannot conceive of anything other than a powerful local nemato- 

 cyst discharge that could produce this particular effect. 



MUSCATINE: Have you ruled out a mucous adhesive? 



ROSS: We satisfied ourselves by direct observation that they were 

 not adhering by mucous strands, but that the tentacle was sticking 

 directly to the shell at definite points of contact and not over the 

 whole surface. 



BURNETT: Perhaps your animals which did not adhere to the 

 shell were still discharging nematocysts? We have found that satiat- 



