ANATOMICAL STUDIES ON THE NERVUS VAGUS OF ALTICUS KIRKIIMAGNUSI (KLAUSEWITZ, 1964)

In Alticus kirkii studied the nervus vagus arises from the brain by one root and leaves the cranial cavity through the jugular foramen. The intracranial dorsal cutaneous vagal ramus has its own ganglion. It carries all the somatic sensory fibres of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve has a single lateral jugular (epibranchial) ganglion. The first vagal branchial trunk lacks the ramus pharyngeus and the third one lacks the ramus pretramaticus. The nervus vagus anastomoses twice with the cranial sympathetic nerve. The nervus vagus carries general somatic sensory fibres to the skin, general viscerosensory fibres to the pharyngeal epithelium, special viscerosensory fibres to the gill rackers and the taste buds and visceromotor fibres to the levators and the adductor arcuales branchiales and the obliquus ventrales muscles of the second, third and fourth holobranchs, as well as to the transverses dorsalis and ventralis muscles. It also carries vegetative fibres (parasympathetic) for the blood vessels, thyroid glands and the muscles of the gill filaments.