Ciliophora

By Wolfgang Petz

In the South Atlantic 58 species of planctonic aloricate or "naked" Ciliophora have been recorded. The present chapter is about these species. In contrast, loricate Ciliophora are building a lorica or protective bowl; these are treated in Chapter 7, Tintinnoinea. Because of their fragility and lack of a permanent skeleton, naked ciliates are under-represented in marine plankton samples and were thus largely neglected in the past.

Contents
Ci. 1 Introduction
Ci. 2 Provenance and collection of materials
Ci. 3 Sample preparation and analysis
Ci. 4 Geographic and vertical distribution
Ci. 5 Geographic patterns
Ci. 6 Vertical profiles
Ci. 7 Classification systems
Ci. 8 Identification of the species
Ci. 9 Suggested reading

Identification
At present there is no key available for planktonic Ciliophora. See page Ci. 8.

Species and higher taxa
See the page for Phylum Ciliophora (and following pages) in the Higher taxa module for taxa down to family. A checklist of South Atlantic Ciliophora can be found there also.

For the species see Tracheloraphis phoenicopterus to Euplotes vannus in the Species module (58 pages).