Apical sensory organ in larvae of the patellogastropod Tectura scutum

The apical sensory organ in veliger larvae of a patellogastropod, a basal clade of gastropod molluscs, was studied using ultrastructural and immunohistochemical techniques. Immediately before veligers of Tectura scutum undergo ontogenetic torsion, the apical sensory organ consists of three large cells that generate a very long apical ciliary tuft, two cells that generate a bilateral pair of shorter ciliary tufts, and a neural ganglion (apical ganglion). Putative sensory neurons forming the ganglion give rise to dendrites that extend to the apical surface of the larva and to basal neurites that contribute to a neuropil. The ganglion includes only one ampullary neuron, a distinctive neuronal type found in the apical ganglion of other gastropod veligers. Serotonin immunoreactivity is expressed by a medial and two lateral neurons, all having an apical dendrite, and also by neurites within the neuropil and by peripheral neurites that run beneath the ciliated prototrochal cells that power larval swimming. The three cells generating the long apical ciliary tuft are lost soon after ontogenetic torsion, and the medial serotonergic cell stops expressing serotonin antigenicity in late-stage veligers. The lateral ciliary tuft cells of T. scutum may be homologs of lateral ciliary tuft cells in planktotrophic opisthobranch veligers. A tripartite arrangement of sensory dendrites, as described previously for veligers of other gastropod clades, can be recognized in T. scutum after loss of the apical ciliary tuft cells.