A Contribution to the Morphology and Phylogeny of <italic>Chlamydodon</italic>, with Three New Species from China (Ciliophora, Cyrtophoria).

Abstract: Three new cyrtophorian ciliates isolated from coastal areas of China were described based on morphological and genetic data. The <italic>Chlamydodon mnemosyne</italic>‐like species <italic>Chlamydodon similis</italic> sp. n. differs from its congeners mainly by its number of somatic kineties. <italic>Chlamydodon oligochaetus</italic> sp. n. is distinguished from its congeners mainly by having fewer somatic kineties, and/or an elongated body shape. <italic>Chlamydodon crassidens</italic> sp. n. is characterized mainly by an inverted triangular body shape, a posteriorly interrupted cross‐striated band (5–6 μm wide), and a large cytostome. Moreover, we provided small‐subunit (SSU) rDNA sequences of <italic>C. similis</italic> sp. n. and <italic>C. oligochaetus</italic> sp. n. Maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) consistently placed <italic>C. similis</italic> sp. n. as a sister to <italic>C. paramnemosyne</italic>, but showed different branching position of <italic>C. oligochaetus</italic> sp. n., which may be due to a low taxon sampling in the Chlamydodontidae and/or an insufficient resolution of the marker gene at species level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]