MORPHOLOGY AND TAXONOMY OF THE MASTIGOPHORA 419 



Adaptations and Mode of Life.— Owing to their remarkable powers 

 of adaptation animal flagellates may be found in practically any 

 place with moisture. They are less abundant in clear drinking 

 waters, where plant flagellates may abound, than in ponds and pools, 

 where decaying vegetation is plentiful; some types of free-living 

 forms have become adapted to the conditions of the soil, others to 

 the putrefactive conditions of dung and feces in general. 



Fig. 178. — Types of ehoanoflagellates. 1, Acanthoeca spectabilis; 2, Dicraspedella 

 stokesi, collar with short secondary collar; 3, Choanoeca perplexa, collar flattened; 

 4, Ste.phanoeca ampulla; 5, Pachyaoeca longicollis; (S, Diploeca placila; 7, Diaphanoeca 

 parva; 8, Choanoeca perplexa at division, young cell with flagellum leaving sister 

 cell in old house. (After Ellis, Ann. de la Soc. Royale Zoologique de Belgique, 1929; 

 courtesy of M. Forton.) 



A favorite haunt for many of these types is in ponds or pools 

 where decomposition is active. Many of them are bottom forms 

 attached to debris or working their way about in the superficial 

 slime. Some are ameba-like (Rhizomastigidae) and in addition 

 to their flagella put out pseudopodia from any part of the body. 

 Others are like Ileliozoa and possess ray-like pseudopodia (Aetino- 



