1044 PARASITES OF PROTOZOA 



amoeba was based on parasites. The statement by Craig that the nuclei 

 were visible in life as "brightly refractile masses of granules" is in 

 keeping with the probability that the supposed nuclei were Sphderita. 

 Dogiel (1916), finding sporangia of Nucleophaga in Myxomonas poly- 

 morpha, thought he was observing chromosomes. The same investigator 

 noted what are probably Sphaerita and Nticleophaga in Joenia intermedia 

 and recognized the former as one of the lower fungi, but he hesitated 

 to interpret the latter as parasitic. Early students of Trichomonas (Wen- 

 yon, 1907; Kofoid and Swezy, 1915; Kuczynski, 1918; Mayer, 1920; 

 Wenrich, 1921) showed chytrids without interpreting them correctly. 



Sphaerita has been found in many parasitic flagellates, especially those 

 in termites. Several species have been differentiated. Cunha and Muniz 

 (1923) gave the name Sphaerita minor to a parasite of Trichomonas 

 muris and T, galUnonim; chytrids in Trichomonas vitali from Bujo 

 marinus (Pinto and Fonseca, 1926), Trichomonas muris, T. caviae, and 

 Eutrichomastix lacertae (Grasse, 1926b) have been assigned to the same 

 species. Grasse also stated that parasites, probably Sphaerita, invade the 

 plasma of Eutrichojnastix colubrorum. Sphaerita trichomonadis was 

 described by Crouch (1933) from Trichomonas ivenrichi of Marmota 

 monax, and 5". chilomasticis by Cunha and Muniz (1934) from Chilo- 

 mastix intestinalis. Sassuchin (1931) found Sphaerita-Uke parasites in 

 Chilomastix magna of ground squirrels. In Mastigina hylae, Sassuchin 

 (1928b) noted parasites that are Sphaerita-Vike in some respects, but 

 are not shown grouped in sporangia; perhaps these are cocci. 



Among flagellates of termites, Sphaerita, which in no instance has 

 been given a specific name, has been reported or figured in Joenia inter- 

 media (Dogiel, 1917), Staurojoenina assimilis (Kirby, 1926a), Meta- 

 devescovina debilis (Light, 1926), Trichonympha chattoni (Duboscq 

 and Grasse, 1927), Stephanonympha dogieli (Bernstein, 1928), Coro- 

 nympha clevelandi (Kirby, 1929), Oxymonas minor (Zeliff, 1930), 

 Pyrsonympha and Dinenympha (Jirovec, 1931b), Vyrsonympha elongata 

 (Georgevitch, 1932), Gigantomonas lighti (Connell, 1932), and sev- 

 eral species of Trichonympha (Kirby, 1932a). In undescribed poly- 

 mastigote and some hypermastigote flagellates in the writer's collection, 

 Sphaerita has been found to be extremely prevalent. 



The presence of Sphaerita has been indicated in all species of intestinal 

 amoebae of man: Entamoeba histolytica (Noller, 1921; Lwoff, 1925; 



