RENAL FUNCTION IN MARINE TELEOSTS

I. URINE FLOW AND URINARY CHLORIDE

¹ DEPARTMENT OF ANATOMY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL

The present observations upon urine flow and urinary chloride in marine teleosts have led to the following conclusions: (1) that freshly caught sculpins and flounders, under fairly ideal and constant experimental conditions, show a rather wide variation in the rate of urine flow and the urinary chloride concentration; (2) that there is no direct relationship between the rate of urine flow and the urinary chloride concentration. When examined in conjunction with previously recorded observations, particularly those of Pitts (1934), the present data apparently justify a third conclusion: (3) that while all marine teleosts apparently have the capacity to excrete a chloride-free urine, and in their normal habitat do so in the majority of instances, they not infrequently excrete variable, and at times considerable, amounts of chloride in the urine under normal physiological conditions.