Morphogenesis of the nasal apparatus of the red deer (Cervus elaphus L.)

Three stages of morphogenesis of the nasal apparatus of the red deer (Cervus elaphus L.) were studied. Many ancestral traits reminiscent of relationships in other mammals and even in reptiles were found, including a cart, ectochoanalis, paraseptal cartilages, the septum nasi and its ventral trabecular enlargement, a lamina transversalis ant., clear separation of the cart, parietotectalis and cart, paranasalis from each other and a crista semicircularis. A maxilloturbinale, was present, but not a nasoturbinale. The main specific features were a completely rostrally localized, peculiar cartilaginous structure in the preseptal space, for which there is as yet no morphological explanation, and pronounced bulging of the cartilaginous wall of the nasal capsule in a ventrolateral direction, level with the rostral region of the olfactory labyrinth (caudally to the aboral end of the maxilloturbinale). In the early stages of morphogenesis, it was found that the ethmoturbinalia might be formed by fusion of the edges of the anlagen of the paranasal cartilage and the lamina orbitonasalis. The structure of the olfactory labyrinth was reminiscent of its organization in the sheep embryo; the recessus frontalis was completed by a series of frontoturbinal recesses and frontoturbinalia, which are poorly developed in the red deer, however. The floor of the caudal part of the nasal capsule was very little developed and there was no cart, paraseptalis post.