Family: Oral area subapical, ovoid, flattened, along ventral margin of laterally compressed body; both side ciliated (Illustrated Guide, 1985).
Genus: Ventral side with a hyaline border, reaching posterior end and bearing trichocysts; dorsal side with either similar trichocyst-border or with trichocyst-warts (Kudo, 1966).
Species: a very common species; elongate; 160 μm long; with a neck region and rounded tail; highly contractile; two ovoid macronuclei; a single contractile vacuole (Carey, 1992).

Google Image Search

L. helus 195 x 42 μm 2 Mac. 16 x 10 Japan, 1997	L. helus 110-163 μm 2 Mac. 12 μm φ Japan, 1997	L. helus 97-140 μm 2 Mac. 9 μm φ Japan, 1997	L. helus 112 x 22 μm 2 Mac. 8 μm φ Yamagata, 1999
L. helus ? 150-160 μm 2 Mac. 9 μm φ Japan, 1998 Movies	L. helus cell μm Japan, 1998	L. helus ? 110 μm 2 Mac. μm φ Senjo-ga-hara Nikko Tochigi, 2003	L. helus ? 115 μm 2 Mac. μm φ Showa-machi g.p. Showa Saitama, 2003
L. helus 120 x 28 μm Aquatic botanical g. Sawara Chiba, 2004	L. helus 120 x 28 μm Onnenai Kushiro marsh Hokkaido, 2005	L. helus μm near Omine mt. Minakami Gunma, 2007

Similar Genus ->> Litonotus; Amphileptus

Please click on species name for more images.

Copyright Protist Information Server