A new flagship peritrich (Ciliophora, Peritrichida) from the River Rhine, Germany: Apocarchesium arndti n. sp.

ABSTRACT: We discovered a free-living peritrich ciliate with outstanding features in the River Rhine. Its morphology and 18S rRNA gene sequence were studied with standard methods. Apocarchesium arndti n. sp. has several peculiarities. (i) There are ordinary zooids, macrozooids, and microzooids, which form a hemispherical rosette on a discoidal base, the stalk dish, locking the approximately 18 microm wide and up to 2 mm long, spirally contracting colony stalk. (ii) The stalk myoneme is connected only to the microzooids. (iii) A rosette contains up to 50 zooids not connected to each other but individually attached to the stalk dish with the scopula. (iv) The ordinary zooids are epistylidid, trumpet-shaped (approximately 6:1 length:width), about 180 x 30 microm in size, and have an ellipsoidal macronu

SUBMITTER: Norf H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3038309 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May-Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature