Frontonia ingesting a diatom

Group: Other free-swimming ciliates · Colpoda, Litonotus, Frontonia, Loxophyllum, Dileptus, Loxodes and many more

What you see

Recorded on 8 October 2011. This loop is the whole 0:20 recording.

Points to check against your own sample:

  • A single cell with cilia, a mouth area and food vacuoles inside; no jaw, no gut.
  • Shape and the arrangement of cilia around the mouth are what specialists use: a long proboscis (Dileptus), a flat knife-like body (Litonotus), a small sphere that jumps (Halteria).

Full description and look-alikes: Other free-swimming ciliates.

Credit line

Video: Deuterostome, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

MP4 720p 2.0 MB MP4 360p 0.5 MB

More clips of this group

0:36Frontonia leucasOther free-swimming ciliates 0:25Frontonia atraOther free-swimming ciliates 0:25Dileptus sp.Other free-swimming ciliates 0:20Dileptus 1Other free-swimming ciliates 0:08Colpoda swimming at 100×Other free-swimming ciliates 0:11Colpoda stuckOther free-swimming ciliates