Specialisations of swimming muscles in the pelagic antarctic fish Pleuragramma antarcticum

The distribution and ultrastructure of muscle-fibre types has been investigated in adult and juvenile specimens of the pelagic high-antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarcticum Boulenger, 1902 collected from the South Shetland Islands during the winter of 1984/1985. Two main fibre-types were identi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine Biology
Main Authors: Johnston, I.A., Camm, J.-P., White, M.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: Springer 1988
Subjects:
Ner
Online Access:http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/521654/
https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00392949
Description
Summary:The distribution and ultrastructure of muscle-fibre types has been investigated in adult and juvenile specimens of the pelagic high-antarctic silverfish Pleuragramma antarcticum Boulenger, 1902 collected from the South Shetland Islands during the winter of 1984/1985. Two main fibre-types were identified in araldite-embedded material. The axial musculature was mainly composed of poorly vascularised, largediameter muscle fibres which were densely packed with myofibrils (volume density 81 and 72% for adults and juveniles, respectively). These ultrastructural characteristics are typical of fast-twitch fibres. The number of capillaries ner unit cross-sectional area and the volume density of mito