THE FATE OF INDIA INK INJECTED INTRACARDIALLY INTO THE OYSTER, OSTREA VIRGINICA GMELIN

¹ New Jersey Oyster Research Laboratory and Department of Zoology, Rutgers University

The responses of the oyster to an intracardial injection of a sea water suspension of india ink were followed grossly and microscopically. The ink suspensions agglomerated readily and produced emboli which virtually occluded the arterial vessels of viscera, mantle and adductor muscle. Subsequent events, with considerable overlapping, were in sequence : (a) phagocytosis of the injected ink particles by mobile phagocytes, (b) distribution of the ink in the phagocytic amebocytes to all parts of the organism with concomitant resolution of the emboli and (c) eventual elimination of the ink from the organism by the migration of ink-laden phagocytes through the epithelial layers of the alimentary tract, digestive diverticula, palps, mantle, heart and pericardium into lumina from which they were voided. The epithelia of gonaducts, nephridia and shell-forming mantle were not routes of migration. A close relationship is noted between the role of the phagocytes in the normal digestive process and in the "defense" reaction to such a foreign body as india ink. The possible significance of the responses noted with respect to unexplained mortalities of the oyster is considered.

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