Section of dorsal surface (tegmentum) of valve under very high magnification of Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Barents Sea, Arctic. © B. Sirenko.
The main openings of the aesthete canals, the ‘macropores’, are on slightly raised caps and are arranged in an offset grid. Between the macropores there are many smaller micropores on narrow offshoots of the main aesthete canal.
Proposed aesthete functions include chemoreception, mechanoreception, replenishment of properiostracum materials, secretion of protective substances and photoreception, though the focusing lens and receptive retina found in aesthetes of some species are absent from T. marmorea.

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