Constituents in Skipjack Muscle and Blood — Sather and Rogers 
407 
TABLE 4 
Values 
of T-Tests from 
Data in Tables 
2 AND 3. 
ELECT. 
muscle 
MEAN 
(mEq/kg) 
mean 1 -mean 2 
CALCULATED 
t-VALUE 
P VALUE 
% h 2 o 
red 
white 
72.78 
74.49 
2.0 
2.947* 
0.01 
Na + 
red 
white 
20.92 
11.53 
9.39 
5.314* 
0.001 
K + 
red 
white 
80.44 
106.38 
25.94 
8.890* 
0.001 
Ca + + 
red 
white 
1.86 
4.93 
3.07 
0.892 
0.40 
Mg + + 
red 
white 
17.06 
24.67 
7.61 
4.744* 
0.001 
cr 
red 
white 
92.16 
68.76 
23-40 
0.549 
0.50 
* Significant difference. 
74.49%; sodium — 20.92, 11.53; potas- 
sium = 80.44, 106.38; calcium = 1.86, 4.93; 
magnesium = 17.06, 24.67; and chloride = 
92.16, 68.76. 
Statistical differences between the means dem- 
onstrated that only the calcium and chloride 
contents of the two muscle types were not sig- 
nificantly different. 
The uptake of the C 14 -inulin by the two 
muscle types is illustrated in Figure 1. The 
two intercepts at the ordinate were fitted by 
eye. The values for the red and white muscles 
are 0.69 and 0.55 cpm/mg fresh weight, re- 
spectively. The calculated extracellular (inulin) 
space for the red muscle is 23.79% and that 
of the white muscle is 18.97%. 
Table 5 contains the comparison of some 
plasma constituents of various fishes with those 
of the skipjack, K. pelamis. The plasma con- 
centrations are in mEq/liter. 
The comparison of the muscle electrolyte 
contents of some teleosts with those found in 
the skipjack is contained in Table 6. The con- 
centrations are expressed in mEq/kg tissue 
water. 
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 
The blood constituents of K. pelamis (Table 
1 ) will be discussed with comparable data from 
other species in a later section of this presen- 
tation. 
Fig. 1 . Uptake, in vitro, of C 14 -inulin by red and 
white muscles of the skipjack, K. pelamis. 
