Previous work has shown that the outflow tract of the elasmobranch heart, namely the
cardiac portion intercalated between the ventricle and the ventral aorta, does not consist
of a single component, the conus arteriosus, as has classically been assumed, but two,
the myocardial conus arteriosus and the non-myocardial bulbus arteriosus. From the
evolutionary perspective, knowledge of the anatomy of the cardiac outflow tract of the
holocephali is important, as they are the sister group of elasmobranchs. Our aim is to
describe the cardiac outflow tract of four holocephalan species, two of them, Chimaera
monstrosa and Hydrolagus affinis of the family Chimaeridae, and the other two, Harriotta
raleighana and Rhinochimaera atlantica, of the family Rhinochimaeridae. The cardiac
outflow tract of the four species consisted of a myocardial conus arteriosus, furnished
with valves, and a bulbus arteriosus devoid of cardiac muscle. Both the bulbus and
conus are tubular in shape. The length of the bulbus relative to the total length of the
outflow tract is somewhat smaller in the rhinochimaerids (15%-19%) than in the
chimaerids (19%-23%). The bulbus is covered by epicardium and is crossed by the main
coronary artery trunks. Histologically, the bulbus is mainly composed of elastin and
collagen, and, to a lesser extent, by smooth muscle. This suggests that in
holocephalans, the bulbus actively helps to protect the gill vasculature from exposure to
high-pressure pulses of blood. Our results prove that the bulbus arteriosus is common to
chondrichthyans. In addition, they support the hypothesis that the cardiac outflow tract
consisted of a conus arteriosus and a bulbus arteriosus from the beginning of the jawed
vertebrate radiation, contributing to our understanding of the morphological changes that
have occurred at the arterial pole of the heart in both actinopterygians and
sarcopterygians.
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