An interesting group of testate amoebae is the genus Difflugia. There have been described hundreds of species, but the question is: how many of them are true species? Most descriptions are inaccurate of just based on one single test. Probably this group consists of several genera. Only DNA sequencing can help here. One of my projects is to make a visual map of all known species. It’s one of the most difficult taxa to identify.
V. berolinensis (photomicrograph Steffen Clauß) Velamentofex berolinensis Völcker and Clauß, 2020 Diagnosis: Trophozoites ovoid, 50-300 µm, with a hyaline, extremely flexible, membranous test. Nuclei numerous, 11.6-16.2
V. berolinensis Velamentofex berolinensis Völcker and Clauß, 2020 September 2020, I discovered a population of Velamentofex berolinensis in a sample from the river Gardon in
The videos below show some cells of Velamentofex berolinensis.
P. arcelloides – after Penard, 1904 Penardochlamys arcelloides (Penard, 1904) Deflandre, 1953 Diagnosis: Colorless or very slightly yellowish envelope, bag or cauldron-shaped, very thin, chitinous,
Lieberkuehniidae Siemensma, Holzmann, Apothéloz-Perret-Gentil, Clauß, Voelcker, Bettighofer, Khanipour Roshan, Walden, Dumack and Pawlowski, 2020 Diagnosis: Multinucleate organic-walled monothalamous foraminifera. Test very flexible, elongated to broadly
Fig. 1: Main cell body of specimen A, partly hidden by debris Haplomyxa sp. Three specimens were observed in a Petri dish, along with two