ON THE APPENDICES GENITAI.ES (CLASPERS) IN THE GREENLAND SHARK. 



suppose, as Sir W.Turner 1 ) does, another mode of bringing forth the ova in this than in other 

 Sharks; the ova certainly all get into the oviduct, and are impregnated there; whether thev later are 

 laid or develop into embryos in the uterus must for the present be left undecided 



On the internal reproductive organs of the male only one communication (2) has been given, 

 concerning a specimen of the length of 6 ft. 1 in. The testes were immature; neither by the direct 

 examination of them and their mesorchium nor by injection from the renal duct was Sir W. Turner 

 able to detect any duct for the sperm, and from that he infers that distinct sexual duets are ; 

 wanting in the male, and that the sperm is evacuated into the abdominal cavity, thus quite corre- 

 sponding to the case of the females, as it the previous year had been understood with regard to tho 

 but while the statement has been corrected by T himself with regard to the latter, nothing has as 

 yet come to light concerning the male. I think, however, that the supposition is allowable, that T.'s 

 inference is premature also with regard to the male; it is likely that vasa efferentia in this young, 

 immature specimen (which T. himself declares to be of immature growth ) were either not formed 

 at all or at all events not in a directly visible way 3). It must appear quite natural that also the 

 external male genitals were quite undeveloped in this specimen; the copulatorv appendages were 

 only of a length of i3/ 8 inch, and were far from reaching the end of the fin-membrane (see the fig. 1. c. 

 p. 287). But these copulatorv appendages seem always to have shown a quite similar undeve- 



') Sir W.Turner evidently has not been able quite to dismiss his original conception of the evacuation of th< 

 through the abdominal pores (to which for the rest every parallel would lie wanting, as the Cyclostomes have no abdon 

 poresi; even in his latest communication 14, 18S5 p. 222) '1'. says: But, as it is very doubtful if the entire surface of ea 

 could lie embraced by the spathe-like canal li. e. the mouth of the oviduct), a proportion of the ova would probabh be shed 

 into the peritoneal cavity, and be evacuated through the abdominal pores . 



2 ) Professor Ltitken in: Sm.ia Bidrag til Selachiernes Naturhistorie. 2. Om Havkalens Forplantnim; (Vid. Medd, 

 Naturh. Foren. i Kbhvn. [879 80; p. 56) has tried to make it probable that the Greenland Shark should be oviparous, 

 moreover have soft, shell -less eggs, which is known in no other plagiostome. Among the reasons that might give 

 countenance to this notion Sir W. Turner' s anatomical results are quoted. It is quite evident that if T.'s first communication 

 of the want of oviducts had been correct, a deposition of the eggs, and an impregnation of them outside of the bod 

 female would have been as good as proved; but the later informations from the same author are in my opinion of such a 

 nature, that thev can be used as proofs neither for nor against a deposition of the eggs, but might — connected with my 

 demonstration in the following, that the male Greenland Shark has fully developed copulaton organs — be used 

 of the eggs, as generally 111 Sharks, being impregnated in the oviduct. The other reasons for a deposition of the eggs, quoted 

 by Professor L-, viz. the negative one that we have never hitherto got any foetus of the Greenland Shark, and tin more posi- 

 tive accounts from several laymen of numerous large eggs, but always in the females, cannot, I think, prove anything < 

 in one or the other direction. Against the first of these reasons may be quoted the equally negative circumstance that we 

 have never found eggs of the Greenland Shark outside the animal neither, and against the second that the large 

 evidently ovarial eggs still coherent by the thin, distended ovarial stroma; for all informations also tho 



personally from an Icelandic Shark-fisher — state that the lar.t;e eggs, which are only -.ecu b) the flensing, always cohere by 

 thin membranes or the like: tint lar.ye and soft ovarial eggs, as is well known, are not only found in oviparous well 



in viviparous Sharks and Ravs. As however the only earlier authors, who state anything at all about the ] 

 quite positively, that the Greenland Shark is viviparous, viz. besides otto Fabricius and Faber, who 

 Professor Ltitken, aKo David Cranz, who says in his Historic von Gri nland , ! ' p. 1 (8; I bring! 



Hell 4 Junge zugleich zur Welt (from this work the statement is adopted by Couch, from whom Giin 

 his remark: It is slated to be viviparous, and to produce about four young at a birth [Iutroil. to th< stud) ' 

 p. 333]) - and as moreover the very nearest relative of the Greenland Shark, thi 



is known quite certainly to be viviparous, as also the somewhat more distant relatives, tin 5 md the 



Spinacidte, I, to be sure, think it most probable - I feel tempted to use .1 stroni thai land 



Shark, the other Somuiosus-species, must be viviparous. 



\ buy to Semper: Das Urogenitalsystem der Plagiostomen etc. Arb. Zool. Zoot. Inst. Win 



efferentia are in several Sharks alread) Formed in tin embryo; but I think it is doubtful whether they can be r& 



without the assistance of the microscope, and it does not appear that Sir W.Turnei has used a 



but he says that the mesorchium was so transparent that he must have seen a dm 



testis itself, which T. especialh examined to tract a possible duet in it, can in such a 1 



the Vorkeiinfalte of Semper, i.e. the part where the new ampulla; are formed. 



