86 Phylum Protozoa 



immediately feed on these bacteria and multiply rapidly. As soon as 

 they have become numerous they should be transferred to a new plate 

 and checked by the usual bacteriological methods for contaminations. 

 If contaminants are present, the process should be repeated. F. mira 

 may be cultured indefinitely on pure strains of bacteria. 



The organic composition oj the medium for F. mira. We have used 

 wheat mainly as the original source of organic material. However, a 

 variety of substances are adequate, such as i % solutions of sucrose, other 

 sugars, or soluble starch; and 0.2% solutions of different amino acids 

 and mixtures of amino acids and sugars in either liquid or solid media 

 made up in artificial seawater. 



Light and temperature. F. mira may be cultured in any light in- 

 tensity between bright sunlight and complete darkness and at any tem- 

 perature between io° C. and 42 ° or 43 ° C, the optimum being between 



25° and 35° C. 



Bibliography 



Butts, H. E. 1935. The effect of certain salts of seawater upon reproduction 

 in the marine amoeba Flabellula mira Schaeffer. Physiol. Zool. 



McClendon, J. J., Gatjlt, C. C, and Mulholland, S. 1917. The hydrogen-ion 

 concentration, CO2 tension, CO2 content of seawater. Cam. Inst. Wash. Dept. 

 Mar. Biol. 11:21. 



Rice, N. W. 1935. The nutrition of Flabellula mira Schaeffer. Arch. f. Protist. 



85:350. 

 Schaeffer, A. A. 1926. Taxonomy of the amoebas with description of thirty- 

 nine new marine and freshwater species. Cam. Inst. Wash. Dept. Biol. 24:1. 



VALKAMPFIA CALKINSI AND V. PATUXENT* 



OYSTERS obtained from markets sometimes yield Valkampfia cal- 

 kinsi and V. patuxent from the intestinal tract. These two may 

 be cultured easily on ordinary agar plates, yielding abundant parasitic 

 material. Without considerable familiarity it is almost impossible to 

 distinguish living leucocytes from the parasitic amoebae. 



M. E. D. 

 References 



For the culture of Endamoeba blattae and E. thomsoni see p. 128. 

 For the culture of Endamoeba ranarum see p. 69. 



NOTES ON VARIOUS MEDIA USED IN THE CULTURE 

 OF INTESTINAL PROTOZOA 



Charles A. Kofoid and Ethel McNeh, University of California 



IT IS very important to keep in mind that there are two reasons for 

 culturing intestinal Protozoa. The first is to aid the diagnostician 

 in determining their presence or absence in the stool specimen. It is not 



♦Abstracted from an article in Science 78:128, 1933, by C. M. Breder, Jr., New 

 York Aquarium, and R. F. Nigrelli, New York University. 



