Is ventral in insects dorsal in vertebrates?
pp. 84-93
in: , Landmarks in developmental biology 1883–1924, Berlin, Springer, 1997Abstract
The idea that the ventral side of insects and other arthropods corresponds to the dorsal side of vertebrates has been put forward from time to time since early in the nineteenth century. It was Etienne Geoffroy St.-Hilaire who, in 1822, originally proposed that the arthropod body plan is like the vertebrate body plan turned upside down. His claim was virtually torn apart by Georges Cuvier but re-emerged, with increasing recourse to embryological arguments, about every 50 years thereafter, only to be rejected time and again. However, as we have argued elsewhere, recent molecular and embryological data may be in its favour. Here we take the opportunity, provided by this journal's centennial volume, to review the observations and arguments of earlier embryologists who tried to compare insect and vertebrate development by inverting the dorsoventral axis in one of the groups, whether just formally or — after Darwin's Origin of species — in the assumed course of evolution. The pre-evolutionary writers mainly discussed are M.H.Rathke, R.A.Kölliker and G.Zaddach. From the period after the Origin, we review the work and thoughts of F.Leydig, C.Semper, A.Dohrn and A.Naef.