Cryptopharynx setigerus from the intertidal benthic sediment of the marine estuary Accabonac Harbor. This is the type species of the genus, a small group of psammobiontic, karyorelictid ciliates. As Foissner wrote in 1995: "Scarce literature is available on Cryptopharynx, a small group of psammobiontic, karyorelictid ciliates. The most detailed studies date back to KAHL (1928), the founder of the genus, and KIRBY (1934), who reinvestigated the type species, C. setigerus. In the sixties, DRAGESCO (1960, 1965) described some new species using, however, live observation only, like his predecessors". Very lately, SMALL & LYNN (1985) provided a single diagram of the ciliary pattem from protargol (silver ) impregnated specimens of C. wardi, a new species overlooked in CAREY's (1992) compilation of marine interstitial ciliates. Although SMALL & LYNN's diagram is highly schematized, the main conclusion that Cryptopharynx belongs to the loxodids.
C. setigerus has a "waffle-like" pattern of fibrils on its anterior dorsum and a bottle- shaped cytosome with a short curved "anterior bottleneck" at the end of which is a well defined oval cytostome. There are two macronuclei. In my observations, cyrptopharyngiid ciliates with these features range from 50 -70 um in length from several different samples of the same estuary as well as other neighboring estuaries. KAHL (1928) and KIRBY (1934) observed pronounced size variability (33-96 x 21-45 um), according to Foissner (1) possibly caused by the fact that KAHL and KIRBY combined observations from several populations which usually increases variability. Foissner (1995/6) reports a length range of 26-47 um but this is with protargol stained specimens which usually causes shrinkage.
Imaged in Nomarski DIC using Olympus BH2S under SPlan 40 x objective and also in phase contrast using Zeiss Photomicroscope III using Neofluar 16x and 40X objectives, all with variable phone cropping.
- The lnfraciliature of Cryptopharynx setigerus KAHL, 1928 and Apocryptopharynx hippocampoides nov. gen., nov. spec. (Ciliophora, Karyorelictea), with an Account on Evolution in Loxodid Ciliates. WILHELM FOISSNER. Arch. Protistenkd. 146 (1995/96): 309-327
