Two Oxytrichids from the Ancient Lake Biwa, Japan, with Notes on Morphogenesis of Notohymena australis (Ciliophora, Sporadotrichida)

Abstract

Two oxytrichid freshwater ciliates, Apoamphisiella tihanyiensis (Gellert and Tamas, 1958) Foissner, 1997 and Notohymena australis (Foissner and O’Donoghue, 1990) Berger, 1999, were recorded for the first time in Lake Biwa, a 4-million-year-old lake located at the Shiga Prefecture in Japan. Their morphology was investigated based on observations of live and protargol-impregnated material. Based on the present observation and previous descriptions, A. tihanyiensis is characterized by having an elliptical body shape, yellowish cortical granules, two long frontoventral rows, enlarged frontal and transverse cirri, highly variable numbers of frontoventral, and postoral ventral cirri, and six to 11 caudal cirri arranged in three short rows. New data confirm the presence of pretransverse ventral cirri in this species. Morphologically, N. australis differs from its congeners in having the following combination of characters: greenish cortical granules, the cirrus V/2 located slight anterior to the leftmost transverse cirrus, dorsal kinety 3 almost as long as body, and seven to 10 caudal cirri arranged in three short rows. Morphogenesis in N. australis shows the same pattern as in N. apoaustralis but differs from that of other congeners in the origin of oral primordium and the formation of more than just three caudal cirri.