Chlamydodon bourlandi Qu 2018

Chlamydodon bourlandi Qu et al., 2018 (Fig. 4; Table 1) Morphological description. Size 130���230 �� 65���150 ��m in vivo, and 150���200 �� 60���85 ��m after protargol staining. Body elongated ellipsoid to reverted triangle in outline; posterior end slightly pointed (Fig. 4A, G). Cross-strained band complete, 3���4 ��m wide (Fig. 4B, C). Two orange to reddish pigment spots composed of countless, small pigment particles, located in anterior-left and posterior-right of cell, respectively (Fig. 4A, D, F), Cytoplasm transparent, with many irregular-shaped violet-pigmented vacuoles (2���7 ��m across), which renders cell reddish to violet. Orange to red cortical particles, about 0.5 ��m across, densely distributed between ciliary rows on ventral side (Fig. 4E), but irregularly distributed on dorsal side (Fig. 4D). Cytostome located at about anterior 25% of cell; cyrtos composed of 14���17 nematodesmal rods (Fig. 4B). 22���47 contractile vacuoles (4���5 ��m across, counted from 15 protargol-stained specimens) irregularly distributed, with a contraction interval of 5���10 seconds. Spherical macronucleus heteromerous, in mid-body, about 45 �� 35 ��m in vivo (Fig. 4C) and after fluorescent staining (Fig. 4H), and about 35 �� 28 ��m after protargol staining (Fig. 4I). Micronucleus not detected. Movement by crawling on the substrate, sometimes swimming in water around the longitudinal axis of body. Cilia 6���8 ��m long in vivo. In total 70���86 somatic kineties including 36���48 right, 27���34 left, and three to five (mostly four) postoral kineties. Five to 15 terminal fragments, each containing three to 20 basal bodies (Fig. 4L). Equatorial fragment not detected. Two (four out of 25 individuals observed have three) circumoral kineties parallel to each other; preoral kinety positioned in anterior-left of circumoral kineties (Fig. 4J, K). SSU rRNA gene sequence and phylogenetic position. The SSU rRNA gene sequence of the present population of Chlamydodon bourlandi has GenBank accession number, length, and G + C content of MK 882887, 1639 bp, and 44.91%, respectively. The closest related Chlamydodon species is C. bourlandi (MG 566059) with a 99.0% sequence similarity. The sequence similarity of Chlamydodon bourlandi to Paracyrtophoron tropicum (FJ 998053) is 98.4%. In phylogenetic trees (Fig. 6), our new isolate of C. bourlandi forms a clade with Paracyrtophoron tropicum FJ998053 with moderate bootstrap values (ML /BI, 87%/0.97), then this clade clusters with the branch formed by C. bourlandi MG 566059 and C. obliquus FJ998030 (= C. bourlandi) with full support (ML /BI, 100%/1.00). Abbreviations: CV���coefficient of variation (%); Min���minimum; Max���maximum; M���median; Mean���arithmetic mean; SD���standard deviation; n ���number of individuals examined.
Published as part of Wang, Congcong, Qu, Zhishuai & Hu, Xiaozhong, 2019, Morphology and SSU rDNA sequences of four cyrtophorian ciliates from China, with description of a new species (Protista, Ciliophora, Phyllopharyngea), pp. 206-220 in Zootaxa 4664 (2) on pages 210-212, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4664.2.3, http://zenodo.org/record/3384530