BIO325H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Hydrostatic Skeleton, Muscular Hydrostat, Mcgraw-Hill Education
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There is a text by k. v. kardong vertebrates", mcgraw hill. This figure is taken from it and illustrates the muscular nature of the notochord. I haven"t found the flood papers that this is taken from. Perhaps the fluid-filled spaces between the muscle cells make this a kind of hybrid of hydrostatic skeleton and muscular hydrostat. As the muscle shortens it shortens the body wall of which it is a part and telescopes the body [animal collapses longitudinally like an accordion] . In a body with a notochord, the longitudinally incompressible cord resists the tendency of a contracting muscle to shorten the body. Instead of shortening the body, the contraction of the muscle sweeps the tail to the side. that is, the notochord functions to enable undulatory(retrograde body waves). Whiteanerobicmuscle occupies most of the volume, but is used only for short bursts of speed e. g. , pike or barracuda attack.
