Acineria
Acineria Dujardin, 1841 (ref. ID; 2013)
Body shape elongate, laterally flattened with rounded posterior, anterior narrows to blunt point. Oral aperture is a slit lying along the obliquely situated apical edge. There is a line of trichocysts below the oral edge. Many cilia in rows on right (lower) surface which continue past the dorsal edge onto the dorsal side of the left (upper) surface. The ventral half of the left surface is unciliated. Single terminal contractile vacuole. Macronucleus in two ovoid parts with micronucleus between them. Single-species genus first described by Dujardin (1841). Feeds upon small ciliates such as Colpidium and Cyclidium.
Quote; Colin R. Curds "British and other freshwater ciliated protozoa Part I Ciliophora: Kinetofragminophora" Cambridge University Press, 1982 (ref. ID; 2013)
- Acineria incurvata Dujardin, 1841 (ref. ID; 1219, 1601, 1622, 1629, 2245, 4612) reported year? (ref. ID; 3698)
Syn; Acineria acuta Dujardin, 1841 (ref. ID; 1601); ?Amphileptus anaticula Claparede & Lachmann, 1859 (ref. ID; 1601); Amphileptus incurvatus Lepsi, 1926 (ref. ID; 1601); Lionotus reversus Kahl, 1926 (ref. ID; 1601); Litonotus lamella Fryd-Versavel et al., 1975 (ref. ID; 1601); ?Trachelius anaticula Ehrenberg, 1833 (ref. ID; 1601) - Acineria nasuta Lepsi, 1962 (ref. ID; 1601)
- Acineria punctata (ref. ID; 4612)
- Acineria uncinata Tucolesco, 1962 (ref. ID; 1601, 1629, 4527, 4612, 4867)
Acineria incurvata Dujardin, 1841 (ref. ID; 1219, 1601, 1622, 1629, 2245, 4612) reported year? (ref. ID; 3698)
Synonym
Acineria acuta Dujardin, 1841 (ref. ID; 1601); ?Amphileptus anaticula Claparede & Lachmann, 1859 (ref. ID; 1601); Amphileptus incurvatus Lepsi, 1926 (ref. ID; 1601); Lionotus reversus Kahl, 1926 (ref. ID; 1601); Litonotus lamella Fryd-Versavel et al., 1975 (ref. ID; 1601); ?Trachelius anaticula Ehrenberg, 1833 (ref. ID; 1601)Descriptions
Body laterally compressed, outline more or less long and ellipsoid; rather polymorphic; right side with about 12 rows of cilia; left side with only 4 rows in the dorsal part, ventral part of the left side without cilia; mouth slit-like in the ventral part of the anterior region, trichocysts at the edge of the mouth slit; the left ventral region just behind the mouth is somewhat concave and hyaline; (ref. ID; 1219)Freshwater and marine. Body length about 45-200 um, but abnormal, giant individuals up to 500 um showing most organelles duplicated. Body oblong, slightly contractile, laterally compressed, rounded posteriorly, narrowing anteriorly to a blunt point. Rather variable in shape (slender to wide and plump) depending on nutritional condition. Ventral side more or less convex, dorsal side straight or concave in the anterior, convex in the posterior region. Excavated region conspicuous, shining brightly. Anterior-most dorsal top somewhat refractive, due to the rolled up oral slit. Macronucleus in two spherical to ovoid parts with a single micronucleus between them. Macronuclear parts fuse during bipartition and divide in the later fission stages. Single contractile vacuole at the posterior pole, diameter about 7 um, with 5-8 pores on the right lateral side. Cytoproct terminal, a slightly laterally located slit. Pellicle soft, flexible, with longitudinal furrows in which the cilia and bristles originate. Furrows disappear in well-fed individuals extrusomes straight to slightly fusiform, thin, about 4 um long, located along the cytostome, a small accumulation of them in the ventral side of the posterior end and even a few scattered throughout the body. Cytoplasm of normally-fed specimens rather clear, containing some small colourless spheres. Carnivorous, feeds on small hymenostome ciliates, e.g. Colpidium, Cyclidium, Glaucoma, Pseudocohnilembus, Loxocephalus, Uronema. Starved individuals feed even on 'cysts' of Euglena viridis and perhaps on bacteria. Ingestion vacuoles rather large, dividing quickly into smaller food vacuoles. Movement moderately quick, gliding on the bottom of the petri-dish or swimming in rotation along its longitudinal axis. Bipartition by transverse fission. Opisthe almost when it separates from the proter. Very small degenerative forms tend to conjugate; during this process the mouth of an individual fuses with the back of another. Encystment frequently occurring when food is depleted. Endocyst forms within an hour, later the macronuclear parts fuse to a worm-shaped product. Wall of ectocyst without visible structure. Cysts surrounded by some material which stickes them to the bottom of the culture dishes or to the bacterial film on the surface of the culture medium. Three different types of cilia: (1) normal cilia, about 10 um. (2) short bristles, about 0.5-1.0 um, (3) club-shaped bristles, up to 2.0 um. Eleven longitudinal kineties with cilia type 1, about 8-9 of them on the right and about 3 on the left side. In addition to the normal somatic kineties the following are found on the more differentiated left side: (1) a single kinety with cilia type 2 located to the left of the brosse kinety and often extending only to the middle of the body, its posterior basal bodies less closely spaced, (2) one brosse row of obliquely arranged, paired bristles (cilia type 3) being posteriorly continued by a row of unciliated kinetosomes (or by kinetosomes with very short bristles only), (3) one kinety consisting apically of 2-3 cilia of type 3 (probably consistuting a rudimentary brosse row) and being continued by a few unciliated kinetosomes (about 5 in the anterior third and about 3 kinetosomes in the middle of the body). Kahl (1926, 1931) described the brosse as being built up to of 3 rows of bristles. Foissner (1977/1978) observed only a file-shaped structure there, most probably suggest by the single row of paired brosse-bristles. Cytostome more or less curved, anterior overlapping to the left side but not to the right. Perioral kinety 1 left of cytostome, with paired basal bodies along the mouth, however, only the anterior basal body each bearing cilia of type 2. Perioral kinety 2 and 3 to the right of the oral slit showing closely spaced basal bodies and constituting the so-called 'mane', a conspicuous compact ciliature. Perioral kinety 2 with paired basal bodies along the oral slit, the anterior basal body bears a cilium of type 1. This kinety appears unciliated post-orally. Perioral kinety 3 with single basal bodies but ciliated along the whole body with cilia type 1. Horvath & Kuhn (1941) misinterpreted the perioral kineties 2 and 3 as left and right perioral kineties. The silverline system is a linearly oriented fine-meshed lattice. (ref. ID; 1601)
Measurements
Length 50-150 um. (ref. ID; 1219)Body length 46-75 um, body width 12-19 um. (ref. ID; 1601)
Acineria nasuta Lepsi, 1962 (ref. ID; 1601)
Descriptions
Marine. Single macronucleus. Pellicle with 5-6 distinct stripes. Postapical, to the right of the so-called 'nose' a peculiar line. (ref. ID; 1601)Measurements
Body length about 90-100 um; rather wide. (ref. ID; 1601)Acineria uncinata Tucolesco, 1962 (ref. ID; 1601, 1629, 4527, 4612, 4867)
Descriptions
Brackish and freshwater. Body lanceolate without lateral edge. Anterior pole overlapping towards the left side. Two spherical macronuclei showing a clearer zone at their central region. Sometimes a single, elongated, tapered nucleus. Contractile vacuole terminal, often surrounded by a group of smaller vacuoles. Cytostome a straight and short slit restricted to the rolled up anterior pole. There, they feed only on small prey (flagellates). Three somatic kineties on the right side with 20-22 cilia each. Cilia at the ventral margin of the anterior third transformed to regularly curved crotchets. Tucolesco (1962) separated this species from A. incurvata by the non-overlapping post-oral dorsal margin. However, in A. incurvata the situation is rather similar. Thus, Augustin et al. (1987) propose the following characters for discrimination from A. incurvata: the presence of only three somatic kineties on the right side, the (probably) unciliated left side, and the short oral slit being restricted to the anterior pole. (ref. ID; 1601)Acineria uncinata is a lanceolate ciliate with a short oral slit restricted to the anterior region, and rolled up forming a characteristic overlapping in the anterior area at the left side of the cell. Sizes range between 26-38 um in length and 11-17 um in width in OsO4 fixed specimens. The nuclear apparatus consists of two nearly spherical macronuclei, closely together, and one large micronucleus between them. A single contractile vacuole is at the posterior end of the cell. Extrusomes are regularly placed at the anterior end of the cell, and other are dispersed at the cytoplasm. Somatic infraciliature is composed of four kineties (rarely five) which present a different arrangement at both sides of the cell. The two right ones (rk1, rk2) have long cilia and show kinetodesmal fibers, while the two left somatic kineties (lk1, lk2; a third left kinety is sometimes present) possibly lack such fibers. A kinetal segment with short clavate cilia, composed of pairs of kinetosomes, is located at the left dorsal side. Three perioral kineties are located at both sides of the oral region. Left perioral kinety (pk1) shows kinetosomes with slight fibers which could correspond to transverse microtubules. At right side, two kineties accompany the oral slit, one of them (pk2), short in length, seems to be formed by pairs of kinetosomes whose fibrillar derivates did not stain, while the other kinety (pk3), extending to the posterior end of the cells, is formed by kinetosomes with long cilia and conspicuous kinetodesmal fibers. This perioral kinety is thus very likely a somatic ciliary row except for its anterior region. (ref. ID; 4867)