The plagiopylids are a small order of
ciliate
The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagellum, eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a ...
s, including a few forms common in anaerobic habitats.
The body cilia are dense, and arise from
monokinetids with an entirely unique ultrastructure; one or two rows of
dikinetids run into the oral cavity, which takes the form of a groove, with a deep tube lined by oral cilia leading to the mouth. The order was introduced by Eugen Small and Denis Lynn in 1985, who treated it as a subclass of
Oligohymenophorea. Since then they tend to be treated as an independent class, possibly affiliated with the
Colpodea. Class Plagiopylea is divided into two clades: one contains members of the order Plagiopylida (like ''
Plagiopyla frontata'' and ''
Trimyema compressum'') and the second clade contains plagiopylean
ciliate
The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagellum, eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a ...
associated with
denitrifying obligate
endosymbiont
An endosymbiont or endobiont is an organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism. Typically the two organisms are in a mutualism (biology), mutualistic relationship. Examples are nitrogen-fixing bacteria (called rhizobia), whi ...
''Candidatus'' Azoamicus ciliaticola.
References
Further reading
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Intramacronucleata
Ciliate orders
{{Ciliate-stub