THE IMPLICATIONS OF RECENT DESCRIPTIONS OF KINETID STRUCTURE TO THE SYSTEMATICS OF THE CILIATED PROTISTS

Review of the last decade has generally confirmed the presence of nine major kinetid patterns of ciliates. These patterns form the basis of several recent classification schemes that are not able, however, to recognize several variant patterns: Phacodinium, Transitella, Plagiopyla, Lechriopyla, Mesodinium, and Schizocaryum are examples of taxa whose position remains unclear even with ultrastructural evidence. The development of cell structures has provided some striking insights into the phylogenetic relationship of some taxa, notably the stomatogenesis of Coleps and kinetid replication of Eudiplodinium. Systematic implications of these data are also discussed.