So enjoy a random pretty Peritrich ciliate (think Vorticella) - Apocarchesium, a sizeable clump of vorticella-like bodies atop a single contractile stalk:
And since this paper is by the great Wilhelm Foissner, it includes the obligatory sexy drawings:
Everything you need to know to identify Apocarchesium. (Norf & Foissner 2010 JEM)
That one's actually modest by his standards. There's some truly amazing descriptive drawings by him out there. Possibly worthy of a whole post. Eventually. Especially since he has described a freaking insane number of various ciliates, and possibly other protists. But before that, prior obligations.
Meanwhile, I like to recommend this awesome NAS Sackler Colloquium talk by Julius Lukeš accompanying Lukeš et al. 2009 PNAS on convergent evolution between Alveolates (namely, dinoflagellates) and Euglenozoans. Go watch and savour the amazing genomic evolutionary madness contained therein.
I still have to lay my hands on a copy of Foissner's paper on Namibian soil ciliates. You know, the one that's 1500 freaking pages long.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever do, electronically, mind hooking me up with it? I've ordered a few of the massive Foissner books through interlibrary loan, but I think they strategically forgot about me. It IS expensive to ship large books here all the way from freaking Europe...
ReplyDeleteShipping a whole hardbound volume from Newfoundland when I specifically requested a scan/photocopy of a single article was apparently acceptable, on the other hand.
Will harass them again when I get around to it ^^