''Stentor coeruleus'' () is a

protist A protist ( ) or protoctist is any eukaryotic organism that is not an animal, land plant, or fungus. Protists do not form a natural group, or clade, but are a paraphyletic grouping of all descendants of the last eukaryotic common ancest ...

in the family Stentoridae which is characterized by being a very large

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 ...

that measures 0.5 to 2 millimetres when fully extended. ''S. coeruleus'' specifically appears as a very large trumpet. It contains a

macronucleus A macronucleus (formerly also meganucleus) is the larger type of nucleus in ciliates. Macronuclei are polyploid and undergo direct division without mitosis. It controls the non-reproductive cell functions, such as metabolism Metabolism (, ...

that looks like a string of beads that are contained within a ciliate that is blue to blue-green in color. It has the ability to contract into a ball through the contraction of its many myonemes . ''Stentor coeruleus'' is known for its regenerative abilities. When this organism is cut in half, each half is able to regenerate a cell that has its normal anatomy provided that each cut part includes some of the macro-nucleus. It feeds by means of

cilia The cilium (: cilia; ; in Medieval Latin and in anatomy, ''cilium'') is a short hair-like membrane protrusion from many types of eukaryotic cell. (Cilia are absent in bacteria and archaea.) The cilium has the shape of a slender threadlike proj ...

that carry food into the gullet. Stentor coeruleus

DNA

The

genetic code Genetic code is a set of rules used by living cell (biology), cells to Translation (biology), translate information encoded within genetic material (DNA or RNA sequences of nucleotide triplets or codons) into proteins. Translation is accomplished ...

is the standard code, and not the usual form for ciliates. The

introns An intron is any Nucleic acid sequence, nucleotide sequence within a gene that is not expressed or operative in the final RNA product. The word ''intron'' is derived from the term ''intragenic region'', i.e., a region inside a gene."The notion of ...

are unusually small, only 15 or 16 nucleotides long.

Reproduction

''S. coeruleus'' is capable of

sexual reproduction Sexual reproduction is a type of reproduction that involves a complex life cycle in which a gamete ( haploid reproductive cells, such as a sperm or egg cell) with a single set of chromosomes combines with another gamete to produce a zygote tha ...

, or

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics *Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form *Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics *Complex conjugation, the change o ...

, but primarily reproduces asexually by

binary fission Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two values (0 and 1) for each digit * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical o ...

References

{{Authority control Heterotrichea Protists described in 1830 Ciliate species