the marine ciliate Eutintinnus sp.

Franz Neidl · Post by **Franz Neidl** » Fri Feb 10, 2012 2:30 pm

This planktonic ciliate was 450 µm long. The genus - I think - is Eutintinnus. But the species? Maybe E. elongatus or E. fraknoi ?
3 pictures with obj. 20x or 40x.

Franz

BJ · Post by BJ » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:58 am

Hi Franz,

i think that many people now just consider Eutintinnus elongatus to be a form of Eutintinnus fraknoi. I imagine that you are identifying it using the ICES sheet by Marshall. In her description the only real difference is the ratio of the aboral to oral openings. Using a ruler on your first photo on my computer screen, the ratio is 2:3. On this basis your specimen would be E.fraknoi.

Whilst searching for information on this, I came across a two volume marine zooplankton identification guide which may be of interest. As it relates to the Arabian Gulf it may be another useful source for you as it includes warmer water species which are often not well covered in other guides which tend to be focussed on the colder north atlantic waters.

Volume 1 (which includes the tintinnids)

http://www.kisr.edu.kw/Data/Site1/image ... 07-0-1.pdf

and volume 2 (especially for copepods)

http://www.kisr.edu.kw/Data/Site1/image ... 07-0-2.pdf

enjoy,

Brian

Charles Krebs · Post by **Charles Krebs** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:00 am

Franz,
Beautiful subject and pictures!

BJ,
Very nice references, thanks for posting the links.

Jbailey · Post by **Jbailey** » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:43 pm

Franz:

Those are really fine photos! Do these creatures recoil into their tubes if you tap the slide?

Jim

Franz Neidl · Post by **Franz Neidl** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:22 pm

Jim wrote:

Do these creatures recoil into their tubes if you tap the slide?

They are more sensitive if they are covered with the coverglass and many of them remain then in the middle of the lorica without moving the cilia.

for Charles and Brian:
thank you for your comments. The indicated literature from Bryan is very usful for me!
(By the way: I discovered in Internet many free accessible documents for marine biology - generaly in PDF format. Recently I found a gratis program to order and to use all this documents. Because I find this program very useful I comunicate it to you. Have a look to: http://calibre-ebook.com/ )

Franz