The embryo now consists of two layers of cells, epiblast and hypoblast, surrounding a cavity, the archenteron, which opens to the exterior by the orifice of invagination or blastopore.
Vezhdovsky has lately seen reasons for regarding the blood system as originating entirely from the hypoblast by the secretion of fluid, the blood, from particular intestinal cells and the consequent formation of spaces through pressure, which become lined with these cells.
Moreover, the body cavity of the rotifers is a primitive archicoele; the persistent or accrescent cleft between epiblast and hypoblast, traversed by mesenchymal muscular bands.
The proboscis is an invagination from the epiblast; the proboscidian sheath appears in the mesoblast, but is perhaps originally derived from the hypoblast.
The little mass of hypoblast or enteric cell-mass now enlarges, but remains connected with the cicatrix of the blastopore or orifice of invagination by a stalk, the rectal peduncle.