Placentation in the American beaver ( Castor canadensis ) This work was supported in part by General Research Support grant FR-05383-06 of the University of Michigan Medical School, and in part by Institutional Research grant IN-401 to The University of Michigan from the American Cancer Society.

Abstract

Implantation in the beaver is superficial and antimesometrial. The embryonic disc occupies one side of the flattened mesometrial hemisphere of the large blastocyst. An endometrial papilla, unique to the beaver, forms on the mesometrial uterine wall just prior to chorioallantoic contact. The reniform placenta then develops around this papilla. Amniogenesis is by folding. A transient choriovitelline placenta develops very early. Yolk sac inversion is late, and the bilaminar omphalopleure is partially retained throughout gestation. The chorion persists until term as two paraplacental membranes. A large permanent allantoic vesicle is present. The labyrinthine placenta has a lobulate architecture. It possesses a hemodichorial barrier, the inner layer being syncytial and the outer cellular. Maternal blood is supplied by two arterial channels which do not penetrate the labyrinth, and is drained by a single, central venous channel. A large basal subplacenta develops by trophoblastic invasion of the endometrial papilla, and becomes quite massive at term. Its function is unknown. Except for this specialized subplacenta, all the fetal membrane characteristics are typical of the primitive sciuromorph group, to which the Castoridae seem to be closely related.