New Contribution to the Morphological Taxonomy of Three Marine Cyrtophorid Ciliates from the Yellow Sea, China (Ciliophora: Cyrtophorida)

The morphology and infraciliature of three marine cyrtophorid ciliates, Dysteria lanceolata Claparède and Lachmann, 1859, Lynchella nordica Jankowski, 1968 and Chlamydonyx paucidentatus Deroux, 1976, collected from the coastal waters of Qingdao, China, were investigated using live observations and the protargol impregnation method. D. lanceolata was oval in body outline, about 65 × 45 μm in vivo, with a subcaudally positioned podite, six to seven right kineties, two or three frontoventral kineties, and two ventral contractile vacuoles. The improved diagnosis for L. nordica and a key to all known Lynchella species are supplied. The rediscovery of C. paucidentatus enables us to accept its taxonomic identification (e.g., separation from a morphologically similar species Trochilioides recta). The genus Trochilioides Deroux, nov. gen., which was a nomen nudum according to ICZN (1999), is re-established.