Hypotrich and cyst

[NachoBen]

Here is a freshwater (from a lithotelma) Hypotrich Ciliate going round and round inside its cyst and finally escaping from it. This is my first time with such a critter. I had no idea about cysts in Hypotrichia.



Any idea about ID? Thank you!

[Bruce Taylor]

Nice! It can take a while for freshly excysted ciliates to assume their mature vegetative shape, so identification is difficult. This appears to be a stylonychine (in the family Oxytrichidae), and likely Stylonychia itself. For comparison, a video I recorded a long time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kon-aP2DSyg&t=128s

[NachoBen]

Glad you liked it, Bruce! Your video is quite illustrative. Yours and mine, both critters seem to be the same so I stick to Stylonychia sp. I assume it is a resting cyst, not a reproductive one.

Do you happen to have some information about Hypotrichia and their cysts?

Thank you very much!

[Bruce Taylor]

There's a lot of literature about oxytrichid cysts. Here are a few papers (the first one is a general overview of ciliate encystment):

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/mi ... 85502/full

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epd ... .tb06009.x

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3225545?ca ... N_8LnRheXo

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... Tt9w_NtYgg

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3226358?ca ... L_BQ&seq=8

[NachoBen]

This is great, thank you for so much information!

I do not have any institutional access to commercial scientific journals, but I will try to access through the "back door" of free versions (ResearchGate, etc).