no 



OTHER FLAGELLATES 



trailing. Eiiferonionas is parasitic in 

 domestic and laboratory animals, and 

 Tetramitus is coprophilic. 



Genus TETRAMITUS Perty, 1852 



In this genus the life cycle involves 

 flagellate and amoeboid forms; there are 

 also uninucleate cysts. In the flagellate 

 stage the body is ellipsoidal or piriform, 

 with a large, trough-shaped cytostome at 

 the anterior end, a vesicular nucleus with 

 a large endosome, 4 anterior flagella, 

 and a contractile vacuole. Nutrition is 

 holozoic. 



Tetramitus rostratus Perty, 1852 

 (syn. , Copromastix prowazeki Aragao, 

 1916) is found in stagnant water and is 

 also coprophilic. It has been found in 

 human and rat feces. The flagellate stage 

 is 14 to 18 /i long and 7 to IOjll wide. The 

 amoeboid stage is 14 to 48 jm long and 

 usually has a single lobose pseudopod. 

 The cysts are spherical, thin-walled, and 

 6 to 18 fi in diameter. The life cycle of 

 this species has been studied by Bunting 

 (1926), Bunting and Wenrich (1929) and 

 Hollande (1942). 



Genus ENTEROMONAS 

 Da Fonseca, 1915 



The body is spherical or piriform and 

 is plastic. It has 3 short anterior flagella, 

 1 of which may be difficult to see, and a 

 4th, long flagellum which runs along the 

 flattened body surface and extends free for 

 a short distance at the posterior end of 

 the body. A strand-like funis arises from 

 the blepharoplast and extends posteriorly 

 along the body surface; it stains faintly 

 with iron hematoxylin and strongly with 

 protargol. The nucleus is anterior, vesi- 

 cular, with or without an endosome. There 

 is no cytostome. The cysts are ovoid, and 

 are tetranucleate when mature. A syno- 

 nym of this genus is TricercoDionas Wen- 

 yon and O'Connor, 1917. This genus has 

 been reported from a number of mammals. 



E>itero»io)ias hu»iinis da Fonseca, 

 1915 (synonyms, Octomitus hominis, 



Tricercomonaa intestinalis, Diplucerco- 

 monas soudanensis, Enteromonas beiiga- 

 lensis) occurs in the cecum of man, maca- 

 ques (Macaca »iHlatta, M. sinica, M. 

 nemestrina) the golden hamster and prob- 

 ably other animals thruout the world. 

 Wantland (1955) reported it in l%of 500 

 golden hamsters in the United States. 

 Saxe (1954) transmitted it from the golden 

 hamster to the laboratory rat. Dobell 

 (1935) was unable to infect himself with a 

 culture of £. liominis from the macaque, 

 M. sinica, but believed that future work 

 would show that the human and macaque 

 forms are the same species. Simitch 

 et at. (1959) reported failure to transmit 

 E. hominis to 2 young pigs. 



The trophozoite is oval, 4 to 10 by 3 

 to 6|:x, and has many food vacuoles con- 

 taining bacteria. The cysts are ovoid or 

 ellipsoidal; they are usually binucleate 

 but have 4 nuclei when mature. E. hominis 

 is readily cultivated on the usual media 

 for enteric protozoa such as LES medium; 

 cysts form in the cultures. It is non-path- 

 ogenic. 



Fig. 14. A. Enteromonas. B. Retorta- 

 iiionas. X 2800. (Original) 



Enteromonas suis (Knowles and Das 

 Gupta, 1929) Dobell, 1935 (syn. , Tricer- 

 comonas suis) was described from the 

 cecum of a pig in India. It was cultivated 

 easily in Dobell and Laidlaw's medium. 

 It is shaped like a broad, ovate leaf with 

 a more or less rounded anterior end and 

 a pointed posterior end, and is 9 to 20ju 

 long and 6 to 14/i wide. It moves slug- 

 gishly more or less directly forward and 

 does not rotate like Trichomonas. The 

 three anterior flagella are 8 to ISji long 



