Rhynchopus amitus Skuja 1948

Lee, Won Je, 2015, Small Free-Living Heterotrophic Flagellates from Marine Sediments of Gippsland Basin, South-Eastern Australia, Acta Protozoologica 54 (1), pp. 53-76 : 60

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.4467/16890027AP.15.005.2192

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12522280

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/0B708784-E664-8928-FCBA-FD9D2075D591

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Rhynchopus amitus Skuja 1948
status

 

Rhynchopus amitus Skuja 1948 ( Figs 1b View Fig , 2p–q View Fig )

Observation: Cells are 11 to 18 µm long, sac shaped, but markedly and actively flexible and contractile. There is a fine apical papilla, which has slightly thickened margin and is an ingestion organelle. A conspicuous flagellar pocket, about 2 µm deep, opens immediately below the papilla and is directed anterio-laterally. Most cells have very short flagella, which do not emerge from the pocket, but a few cells observed had two thickened flagella, 0.5 to 1 times the cell length. These flagella are directed posteriorly and usually inactive. The posterior half of the cell often contains large food vacuoles. The cells move by gliding. Rarely observed.

Remarks: This species was described from a freshwater site in northern Europe by Skuja (1948) and a marine site in Australia ( Al-Qassab et al. 2002). Rhynchopus conscinodiscivorus was reported from a marine habitat by Schnepf (1994), but was regarded as a junior synonym of R. amitus by Al-Qassab et al. (2002). Al-Qassab et al. (2002) suggested that Menoidium astasia reported from a hypersaline habitat (Marion Bay, South Australia) is a senior synonym of R. amitus because it is flexible and has two long flagella or no flagella at times. Rhynchopus is difficult to distinguish from Diplonema , but trophic cells in Diplonema have emergent flagella of a ‘normal’ thickness. Rhynchopus only has emergent flagella in a ‘dispersal phase’ and these flagella are considerably thickened by paraxonemal rods (Simpson 1997). Further studies are needed to establish the identities of the genera, Diplonema and Rhynchopus .

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