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The World of Protozoa, Rotifera, Nematoda and Oligochaeta

Ref ID : 7412

John C. Clamp and Phyllis Clarke Bradbury; Redescription of Ellobiophrya brevipes (Laird, 1959) N. Comb. (Ciliophora, Peritrichia) and the Fine Structure of its Pellicle and Cinctum. J.Eukaryot.Microbiol. 44(4):374-382, 1997

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A species of peritrich that attaches to gills of the skate, Raja erinacea, was identified by its original describer as a member of Caliperia, a genus characterized by having a noncontractile skeletal rod within the arms of its cinctum and by not having the cinctal arms bonded to one another at their tips. Our observations of the living ciliates confirmed by protargol impregnation and electron microscopy revealed that their cinctal arms are linked by a bouton and that the cytoskeletal structure within them has the fine structure of a myoneme. These characteristics place this peritrich unequivocally in the gens Ellobiophrya and it is thus renamed Ellobiophrya brevipes (Laird, 1959) n. comb. Clumps of epithelial cells clasped by the cincta of E. brevipes show damage at their bases but not on their luminal surface. The known species of Ellobiophrya are compared for significant structural differences that separate species of this genus.