A Comparative Embryology Gallery

Many invertebrate embryos are truly lovely to look at and watch develop. They are astonishingly diverse and many do remarkable things. Many of them are easy to get, some in vast numbers, and do microscopy and experiments on. Here are a few snapshots, some of which link to more extensive descriptions. By default the thumbnails below link to a full-size image; as I have time and inclination more and more of them will link to a subdirectory of related images. On most computers these images will look downright awful unless you set your monitor to 16-bit color (thousands of colors) or higher.

Maintained by George von Dassow; last modified Oct. 4th 2000

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Cleaving zygote of the jellyfish Aequorea Actinula larva of the hydroid Tubularia Ovulation in the sea cucumber Stichopus Two-cell embryo of the jellyfish Aglantha Pluteus larva of the brittle star Ophiopholis Veliger larva of the snail Calliostoma Egg (with hull) of the chiton Mopalia Gastrula of the sand dollar Dendraster Zygote of the bryozoan Membranipora Cleaving embryo of the ctenophore Bolinopsis Veliger larva of the scallop Chlamys Gastrula of the sea cucumber Stichopus Setiger larve of the polychaete Serpula Early gastrula of the sea squirt Boltenia Egg of the gooseneck barnacle Pollicipes Pilidium larva of the nemertean Micrura Zygotes of the sea urchin S. purpuratus 16-cell embryos of the brittle star Ophiopholis Tailbud embryo of the ascidian Corella Setiger larve of the polychaete Serpula Oocyte of the sea star Pisaster Actinotroch larva of the phoronid Phoronis Cleaving embryo of the sand dollar Dendraster Gastrula of the sea cucumber Stichopus Setiger larva of the polychaete Sabellaria

All the images on these pages were taken during the 1998 and 1999 comparative embryology courses at Friday Harbor Labs, either by me or by the students in those classes, and they are not available for copying or any use elsewhere.

I posted this page first of all because I have a hard disk full of video snapshots of various kinds of embryos that I want to do something with. Second, it's a recommendation for the always-excellent comparative invertebrate embryology course at FHL. As far as I know there are very few such courses offered anywhere in the world.