Search

The morphologies of the three freshwater stentorid ciliates in Korea, Stentor coeruleus (Pallas, 1766); Stentor muelleri Ehrenberg, 1831, and Stentor tartari Murthy & Bai, 1974, were investigated based on live observations and protargol impregnation. The Korean population of S. tartari exhibits the following characteristics: body size 200–355 × 85–135 µm in vivo, 62–106 somatic kineties, 8–13 peristomial kineties, 110–180 adoral membranelles, mostly two macronuclear nodules and 5–18 micronuclei, reddish and colorless cortical granules and the presence of symbiotic algae. We identified S. tartari based on unique characteristics compared to close congeners. Korean populations of S. coeruleus and S. muelleri are congruent with previously described populations in most aspects of their morphologies. Here, for the first time, we report molecular gene sequence information for S. tartari. Small subunit (SSU) rRNA gene sequence-based phylogeny indicates that S. tartari, which has multiple macronuclei, forms a monophyletic group with other Stentor species having a single macronucleus. Our findings based on morphology and SSU rRNA gene sequence information corroborate the hypothesis that the elongated macronucleus evolved from the compact single or multi macronucleus state.

The marine, loricate ciliate Eufolliculina uhligi (Heterotrichida) has a complex life-cycle which includes a motile swarmer. The swarmer settles on the substrate, secretes a lorica and transforms into the trophic stage. This is metamorphosis. Swarmers have been induced to settle by treatment with EGTA to synchronize metamorphosis. Stomatogenesis was observed in protargol-stained cells. It can be characterized as follows: Stomatogenesis of E. uhligi (suborder Coliphorina) is compared with that of members of the suborder Heterotrichina. It is concluded that folliculinids are closely related to the Stentoridae. The separation of the Folliculinidae from the other Heterotrichida should be reconsidered.

Twenty‐six marine benthic ciliates including seven new species were isolated from King George Island, Antarctic. The morphology and taxonomy of 19 of them are described in the present paper: Aegyriana paroliva, Amphileptus sp., Amphisiella antarctica nov. spec., Condylostoma cf. magnum, Dysteria parovalis nov. spec., Folliculina ? sp., Hartmannula cf. angustipilosa, Hemigastrostyla szaboi nov. spec., Heterostentor coeruleus, Holosticha sp., Intranstylum antarcticum nov. spec., Metaurostylopsis rubra, Orthodonella shenae, Philasterides cf. armatalis, Pithites pelagicus nov. spec., Pleuronema coronatum, Strombidium apolatum nov. spec., Telotrochidium sp., and Thigmokeronopsis magna nov. spec. Based on the new observations, an improved diagnosis for the genus Aegyriana is suggested: dorsoventrally flattened Dysteriidae with tail‐shaped podite, which is positioned subcaudally in a glabrous region within somatic kineties; oral structure in two parts: ca three close‐set fragments on right and one preoral kinety...

In biological literature there are widely scattered records of apparently automatic movements of minute entities within the protoplasm of both unicellular and multicellular animals and plants; motions not referable to cyclosis nor to pedesis; having yet no name, accepted meaning or cause. In the ciliated protozoa Folliculinidae, I studied these motions with the Zeiss immersion lens, in 1912, 1913 and again in 1945, 1946, and 1950, as well as in the related Stentoridae. Since these observations were scarcely mentioned in my papers (1923, 1945, 1946) I now bring them to attention, in the hope that others will find these organisms favorable for extended investigation with exact measurements and experiments to gain some better comprehension of such phenomena. In folliculinids and stentors food is cast into the endosarc from the oesophagus to be carried in a food vacuole or "gastriole" slowly and individually through a long course, until finally undigested refuse is thrown out at the cytoproct. The transit of gastrioles is not in a visible tract nor in cyclosis, but each is individually handled as so often seen when yeast cells boiled and stained with Congo Red are taken as food, but not digested. Moreover, individual grains of yeast may be carried through the animal without large enveloping sacs, and the same is true of small linear crystals of the above stain. The protoplasm of folliculinids and stentors is colored, commonly blue-green, and this color is concentrated chiefly in color bodies, "protrichocysts," scattered through the interior but crowded in lengthwise lines in the ectosarc. In Stentor coeruleus, where the interior is grossly vesiculated, these blue granules move about between vesicles as if gliding along films, but in clear homogeneous plasm they have no visible track. They go individually in various directions. To overcome the difficulty of focusing in the thick mass the attenuated stalk of the fully extended animal is most favorable, as here the clear plasm forms a thin film but eight microns wide. In Stentor igneus individual red grains went in such stalks more than 15 microns at an estimated rate of 2% microns per second. All the interior was active with such movements resembling autos in a city going in diverse directions, stopping and starting. Some passed close to others going in opposite directions. In Parafolliculina americana Hadzi the trajectories of such particles were curved as well as straight. Their size was from % micron to 3 microns. In camera lucida sketches the particles magnified 2400 diameters went 10 to 100 times their own lengths in single trips at a rate of 2 to 3 microns per