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ILLINOIS BIOLOGICAL MONOGRAPHS 



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CLASSIFICATION OF MYXOSPORIDIA 



The classification of Myxosporidia, was first carried out by Thelohan 

 as early as 1892, who considered rightly that the spore was the only reliable 

 means for the purpose. In 1899 and 1901, Doflein introduced into the 

 classification two Legions, Disporea and Polysporea, and a new family. 

 This plan has generally been followed by various authors in dealing with 

 these protozoa.* 



The classification of the said author, however, no longer agrees with 

 our present knowledge of the animals. In the first place, as was pointed 

 out by some authors, for instance Davis (1917:217), it is far from being 

 correct to divide the Myxosporidia into two Legions, Disporea and Poly- 

 sporea, on the basis of the number of spores formed in each vegetative 

 form, since this differs even in one and the same species as was observed 

 by Leger, Auerbach, Awerinzew, Parisi, Georgevitch, Davis, Kudo and 

 others (see Table IV on page 53). 



Auerbach who had observed numerous interesting facts in this group, 

 had adopted Doflein's classification in his splendid work (1910) by simply 

 adding two genera, Zschokkella and Lentospora, to the family Myxidiidae. 

 In the following year (1911), he tried a new classification, on the same 

 basis as Doflein did, by introducing two new Legions besides these two 

 already existing, and by discarding all the families. Thus: 



I Monosporea 

 II Mictosporea 



III Disporea 

 rv Polysporea 



a) Genus 



a) Genus 



b) Genus 



c) Genus 



d) Genus 



e) Genus 



f) Genus 



a) Genus 



b) Genus 



a) Genus 



b) Genus 



c) Genus 



d) Genus 



e) Genus 



Coccomyxa 



Zschokkella 



Myxoproteus 



Myxidium 



Sphaeromyxa 



Chloromyxum 



Sphaerospora 



Ceratomyxa 



Leptotheca 



Myxosoma 



Lentospora 



Myxobolus 



Henneguya 



Hoferellus 



As will be distinctly seen from Table IV, the classification not only fails 

 to improve Doflein's classification in bringing together the genera, Myxo- 



* Doflein still uses the same classification in his recent work (1916). 



