846 ORDER TENTACULIFERA-ACTLXARIA. 



Order II. TENTACULIFERA-ACTINARIA, s. K. 



None of the tentacles suctorial or capitate. 



Fam. I. EPHELOTIDiE, S. K. 



Tentacles filiform or ray-like, prehensile, developed separately from the 

 body as in the ordinaiy Acinetidae. 



Genus I. EPHELOTA, Str. Wright. 



Animalcules solitary, fixed, elevated on a rigid pedicle, having no 

 indurated lorica or investing membrane; tentacles flexible, more or less 

 retractile or invertile, not suctorial or capitate at their extremities. 



The genus Ephdota, as instituted by Dr. Strethill Wright,* was formed for the 

 reception of certain infusorial types apparently closely alhed to Podophrya, but 

 having pointed flexible tentacles in place of the suctorial ones that distinguish the 

 last-named genus. Of the two species described by this writer, there can be no 

 doubt that the first-named and typical species, Ephelota apiculosa, is identical with 

 the Podophrva Trold described a short time previously by Claparede and Lachmann, 

 and which is distinguished by these authorities from all other members of the genus 

 by the pointed and ray-like instead of suctorial character of the tentacles, and which 

 tentacles are further characterized by the abrupt thickening and comparative rigidity 

 of their basal portions. The much fuller details of the species given by Claparfede 

 and Lachmann, and more especially those recorded by them in reference to the 

 manner in which food is ingested, unmistakably indicate that the form not only 

 requires a separate generic position, as recognized by Strethill Wright, but must 

 likewise be accepted as the type of a separate and highly important family gi"oup, 

 which it is here proposed to distinguish by the title of the Ephelotidag. Thus, while 

 Podophrya and other ordinary Acinetje merely absorb the semi-fluid contents of their 

 prey through their tubular suckers, Ephelota is found to seize the same with the 

 attenuate and apparently adhesive distal extremity of its tentacula, and by an 

 inverted action to drag its prey bodily through the more expanded basal portion of 

 these structures, and thence into the substance of its body. The author was at first 

 disposed to refer the Zooteira relcgata of Strethill ^\'right to this same family of the 

 Tentaculiferous Infusoria, but from a recent examination of that organism has 

 determined its close structural correspondence with the Radiolarian genus Actinophrys, 

 of which it may be regarded as a stalked representative. 



Ephelota coronata, Str. Wright. Pl. XLVIIIa. Figs. 1-3. 



Body ovate, pyriform, or subquadrate ; tentacles numerous, slender, 

 and acuminate, flexible and almost completely retractile, radiating from all 

 points of the periphery, or forming a crown at the anterior border, 

 gradually tapering towards their apex, and not exhibiting an abrupt basal 

 dilatation, as in E. Trold ; pedicle diaphanous, usually longitudinally 

 striate, three or four times the length of the body, widest at its point of 

 junction with the same ; gradually narrowing as it approaches the attached 

 or proximal end. Length of body 1-400". Hab. — Salt water. 



An animalcule corresponding essentially with the above diagnosis has been met 

 with by the author attached to zoophytes and Polyzoa on both the Guernsey and 



'Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,' 1858. 



