Petalomonas minuta

Aydin, Esra Elif & Lee, Won Je, 2012, Free-living Heterotrophic Flagellates from Intertidal Sediments of Saros Bay, Aegean Sea (Turkey), Acta Protozoologica 51 (2), pp. 119-137 : 129

Petalomonas minuta Hollande 1942 ( Figs 3b , 4g)

Observation: Cells are 6–12 µm long, ovate in shape and flattened, with a deep longitudinal groove on the dorsal face. The cells have one flagellum inserting into a reservoir in the right side of the cell and the flagellum is about 1.2 times the cell length. The nucleus is in the left side of the cell. The cells move by gliding. Two cells found.

Remarks: This species resembles Petalomonas poosilla Larsen and Patterson 1990 in cell length and flagellum length, but differs because of its deep dorsal groove. Petalomonas minuta was reported with cell length of 5.5 to 12 µm in marine sites worldwide ( Larsen and Patterson 1990; Patterson et al. 1993; Lee and Patterson 1998, 2000; Al-Qassab et al. 2002; Lee 2002b, 2006, 2008, 2012; Lee et al. 2003). According to Lee and Patterson (2000), this species has several synonyms: Petalomonas angusta (Klebs) Lemmermann var. pusilla (Klebs) Lemmermann 1914 , Petalomonas mediocanellata Stein 1878 var. pusilla Klebs 1892 and Petalomonas minutula Christen 1962 .

Figures

Fig. 3. a – Petalomonas marginalis; b – Petalomonas minuta; c – Petalomonas ornata; d – Petalomonas poosilla; e–f – Ploeotia corrugata; e – general appearance of the cell from ventral and (f) dorsal view showing the ridges; g – Sphenomonas angusta; h – Ploeotia vitrea; i – Polyoeca dichotoma; j – Protaspis obliqua; k – Protaspis tegere; l – Salpingoeca marina; m – Pseudophyllomitus granulatus; n–p – ‘Aegoni’, n – postero-lateral view of the cell showing the beak – like structure; o – posterior view of the cell showing the flagellar insertions; p – general view of the cell. Scale bar: 5 μm for all figures.