Meeting Abstract
Conch (Gastropoda: Strombidae) possess strikingly large and complex eyes for a gastropod mollusc. The presence of relatively complex eyes suggests that the neural structures associated with visual processing in conch may also be more complex than those observed in other gastropods, which tend to have relatively small eyes or no eyes at all. In this study, the optic lobes of the Florida fighting conch Strombus alatus were characterized using ethyl gallate as a neurohistological stain. Brains were harvested and fixed overnight in 2% glutaraldehyde, 1% paraformaldehyde, and 0.16 M cacodylate buffer. Following fixation, the brains were immersed in osmium tetroxide for several hours and transferred to a saturated ethyl gallate solution for two more hours. The conch brains were then sectioned, and photographs of the sections were used to create 3-D reconstructions of the brains. The optic lobes of S. alatus appear to be larger and more complex than those of other gastropods. In the future, the tracing of optic nerves with fluorescent lipophilic dyes will be utilized to more fully describe how the photoreceptors in the eyes project to the optic lobes of S. alatus.
