EMBRYONIC AND EARLY LARVAL DEVELOPMENT OF WHITESPOTTED GREENLING HEXAGRAMMOS STELLERI (SCORPAENIFORMES: HEXAGRAMMIDAE) FROM THE NORTHERN OKHOTSK SEA

In vitro morphological development of whitespotted greenling Hexagrammos stelleri from the northern Okhotsk Sea is described in detail and illustrated from the eggs fertilization to the larvae transition to exogenous feeding. Mean diameter of the fertilized eggs is determined as 2.03 mm (1.80–2.30 mm). The embryos hatch in 30 days and 6 hours after fertilization of eggs under the water temperature of 7.1–12.4 оC (on average 11.5 оC). The hatched prelarvae have the size TL 7.73–9.20 mm (on average 8.49 ± 0.09 mm) and SL 7.48–8.80 (8.15 ± 0.08 mm).

Biplexiform ganglion cells, characterized by dendrites in both outer and inner plexiform layers, are regular, mosaic-forming elements of teleost fish retinae

Biplexiform ganglion cells were labelled by retrograde transport of HRP in five species of marine fish from the neoteleost acanthopterygian orders Perciformes and Scorpaeniformes. Their forms and spatial distributions were studied in retinal flatmounts and thick sections. Biplexiform ganglion cells possessed sparsely branched, often varicose, dendrites that ramified through the inner nuclear layer (INL) to reach the outer plexiform layer (OPL), as well as conventional arborizations in the most sclerad part of the inner plexiform layer (IPL). Their somata were of above-average size and were displaced into the vitread border of the INL. Mean soma areas ranged from 99 ± 6 μm2 in Bathymaster derjugini (Perciformes) to 241 ± 12 μm2 in Hexagrammos stelleri (Scorpaeniformes), but were similar in each species to those of the outer-stratified alpha-like ganglion cells, whose dendritic trees occupied the same IPL sublamina. In the best-labelled specimens, biplexiform cells formed clear mosaics with spacings and degrees of regularity much like those of other large ganglion cells, but spatially independent of them. Biplexiform mosaics were plotted in three species, and analyzed by nearest-neighbor distance and spatial correlogram methods. The exclusion radius, an estimate of minimum mosaic spacing, ranged from 113 urn in Hexagrammos stelleri, through 150 μm in Ernogrammus hexagraminus (Perciformes), to 240 μm in Myoxocephalus stelleri (Scorpaeniformes). A spatial cross-correlogram analysis of the distributions of biplexiform and outer-stratified alpha-like cells in Hexagrammos demonstrated the spatial independence of their mosaics. Similar cells were previously observed not only in the freshwater cichlid Oreochromis spilurus (Perciformes) but also in the goldfish Carassius auratiis (Cypriniformes) which, being an ostariophysan teleost, is only distantly related. Thus, biplexiform ganglion cells may be regular elements of all teleost fish retinae. Their functional role remains unknown.