Copemetopus, VILLENEUVE-BRACHON, 1940

COPEMETOPUS VILLENEUVE-BRACHON, 1940 View in CoL View at ENA

Type locality: Saline ponds off the French coast of the Mediterranean Sea near Sète (‘Fossé de la route de Sète à Agde’; Villeneuve-Brachon, 1940).

Type species: Copemetopus subsalsus Villeneuve-Brachon, 1940 . Typification by Villeneuve-Brachon (1940) by monotypy (see also Aescht, 2001).

Etymology: Noetymologyofthename Copemetopus has been provided concomitantly with the establishment of the genus by Villeneuve-Brachon (1940). Etymology of new names is only recommended (Recommendation 25C of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 1999). [Editorial note: It might be derived from the Greek κωπη, club or oar, and the ciliate genus Metopus ].

Amended diagnosis: Body size from medium to large (120–450 µm); non-contractile; conical shape: wide anteriorly, tapering posteriorly; oral aperture (cytostome) wide at the front, ~50% of body length; macronucleus usually in two equally elongated nodules with a thin, not always visible isthmus in between; micronuclei small, spherical, numerous. Contractile vacuole not detected for all the species; cytoproct not visible; in the cytoplasm of some species, numerous slightly elongated symbiontophorous vacuoles carrying bacteria (two different types); somatic kineties mainly present as rows of dikinetids with all kinetosomes ciliophorous, also with some triplets or even up to six kinetids in the same unit; postciliary microtubules well developed, not forming postciliodesma; two sets of transverse microtubules; a row of long, whip-like ciliary units (moustache) inserted on an outer border of the buccal cavity over AZM polykinetids, without any connection with them; they have a restricted motility and do not participate in the function of AZM; dorsal brush consisting of dense rows of longer somatic cilia beneath the anterior cell pole, on the right side; left serial oral polykinetids look like as a classical AZM; paroral infraciliature as a long row of kinetosomal triplets/doublets; from anoxic brackish water to marine or hypersaline sediments (15–130‰). Until now, including at least five species :

Copemetopus subsalsus Villeneuve-Brachon, 1940 (type species),

Copemetopus subsalsus sensu Al-Rasheid (2001) View in CoL ,

Copemetopus chesapeakensis Small & Lynn, 1985 View in CoL ,

Copemetopus verae Campello-Nunes et al., 2022

Copemetopus mystakophoros sp. nov.

Remarks: Copemetopus mystakophoros , described herein, is the only species of the genus for which both deposited slides defining the holotype and paratype (i.e. voucher material) and a complete set of data (i.e. morphological, ultrastructural and molecular data) useful for species identification are available so far.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in free access on-line repository or are available from the authors upon reasonable request.