The body-wall connective tissue (mesogloea) of the sea anemone Metridium senile constitutes the highly extensible, tensile container for the hydrostatic skeleton of this animal (Wainwright, 1970). Light-microscopic (Chapman, 1953 a) and electron-microscopic (Grimstone, Horne, Pantin & Robson, 1958) studies of anemone mesogloea show this tissue to be densely fibrillar, with the fibres forming right-handed and left-handed helices around the columnar body wall. The fibrous component has been identified as a collagen on the basis of periodic banding in electron micrographs (Grimstone et al. 1958; Piez & Gross, 1959; Batham, 1960) and of amino acid analyses (Piez & Gross, 1959).

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