Abstract

The basic biology of the Queen Conch has been studied from the 1960s because is an economical importance marine resource in all Caribbean Sea; however, an absence onthe knowledge of basic histology has been detected. The mantle is a very important structure of gastropod anatomy, it is responsible of shell formation, to interacting both chemically and physically with the environment, to secrete mucus, and so on. Moreover, the Aquaculture development and the conservation of the natural stock the Queen Conch every day are more vulnerable a maladies and contamination by lessening of its genetic diversity, requiring the knowledge of its histological characteristic that is necessary to establish diagnostics of damage caused by diseases, parasites, contamination and depredation.\In this investigations three males and three females were sampled from Alacranes reef, 22º22"96'N 89°41"3'W, North of Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. They had a shell length of 228 mm (±20) and a lip thickness of 16 mm (±1.8 mm). Each individual were remove from the Shell and a l-cm3 section of the mantle were fixed in Davidson's A.F.A. solution for four days,rinsed in alcohol at 70 %, dehydrated in alcohol at 7 %, 96%, 100%, clarified in Benzene, and inclusion in Aparaplast@ synthetic paraffin. Six microns sections were made with rotary microtome and were mounted on glass slides with Meyer's albumin. For staining was used Harris Hematoxiline B Yellow Eosine (HHE2), regressive method. Under 100x, 400x and 1000x magnifications the microscopy anatomy of five layer that form the mantle from outside (shell adjacent) until inside (cavity of mantle) were described as follow:\i) A squamous epithelium layer;\ii) A collagen fibers layer;\iii) A middle layer of connective tissue;\iv) Layer of muscular tissue;\and v) Transitional epithelium.\As particular characteristic, it was observed that collagen form the cytoplasm of all the five layers that structure the mantle.

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