Lasso cell

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(Zool.) one of a peculiar kind of defensive and offensive stinging cells, found in great numbers in all cœlenterates, and in a few animals of other groups. They are most highly developed in the tentacles of jellyfishes, hydroids, and Actiniæ. Each of these cells is filled with, fluid, and contains a long, slender, often barbed, hollow thread coiled up within it. When the cell contracts the thread is quickly ejected, being at the same time turned inside out. The thread is able to penetrate the flesh of various small, soft-bodied animals, and carries a subtle poison by which they are speedily paralyzed and killed. The threads, at the same time, hold the prey in position, attached to the tentacles. Some of the jellyfishes, as the Portuguese man-of-war, and Cyanea, are able to penetrate the human skin, and inflict painful stings in the same way. Called also nettling cell, cnida, cnidocell.

See also: Lasso

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.
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References in periodicals archive
For example, the nature of a phylum-defining feature of ctenophores, the "colloblast," remains mysterious.
This staining pattern is consistent with antibody bound to colloblast adhesive granules, as was originally identified via electron microscopy by Franc (1978).
We found evidence of non-canonical, catecholic amino acids in colloblast granules of the ctenophore Pleurobrachia bachei.
Catecholic Compounds in Ctenophore Colloblast and Nerve Net Proteins Suggest a Structural Role for DOPA-Like Molecules in an Early-Diverging Animal Lineage
This tentacle bulb subsequently gives rise to the external tentacle strand that possesses sticky colloblasts. Early marking experiments with chalk particles suggested that the two tentacles of the Mediterranean ctenophore Bolina hydatina are derived solely from the [e.sub.1] micromeres (2); but tentacles fail to form when either [e.sub.1] or [e.sub.2] micromeres are deleted (5).
Experimental analysis of tentacle formation in the ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi
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