Amoebae on the stalk of a stentor

[tlansing]

I made a curious observation recently that I thought I would share with this forum and see if anyone else has seen this. I don't think this is the suctorian Sphaerophrya stentori that has been reported to be an epibiont (an organism that lives on the surface of another living organism) of various Stentor species. I did some searches to see if an amoeba epibiont has been reported on Stentors but have found nothing. Perhaps they are feeding on bacteria on the truck of the Stentor. The first photo shows the holdfast area of a Stentor and several of these amoebae on the surface of the Stentor (arrows).

Amoebae on Stentor truck.jpg (28.44 KiB) Viewed 403 times

Here is a video showing some of these amoebae moving around on the surface of the body of the Stentor near the holdfast.