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The morphology of a new oxytrichid ciliate, Oxytricha buxai n. sp., isolated from a soil sample collected from the Buxa Tiger Reserve, West Bengal, India, was studied based on live observation and protargol impregnation. The new species is characterised by a body size of 85×35 µm in vivo, two macronuclear nodules with one or two micronuclei attached at variable positions, a few colourless cortical granules scattered throughout cortex, adoral zone of membranelles about 35% of body length with 26 membranelles on average, about 18 cirri in left and 16 cirri in right marginal row, right marginal row starts at the level of buccal vertex, usually 18 frontoventral transverse cirri, five dorsal kineties including one dorsomarginal row, three caudal cirri. Further, a redescription based on live and protargol-impregnated specimens of Oxytricha quadricirrata Blatterer and Foissner, 1988, isolated from a moss sample collected from the Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh, India, is provided. The Indian population of O. quadricirrata is similar in morphology to the type population. However, the dorsal side shows some variation, i.e., the presence of a second dorsomarginal row with one or two bristles and incomplete fragmentation of dorsal kinety 3 (vs single dorsomarginal row and complete fragmentation). The resting cyst is spherical and about 20 µm across, with a wrinkled surface. Morphogenesis is in typical Oxytricha pattern. Based on 18S rDNA, phylogenetic analyses show Oxytricha to be a polyphyletic genus. Further, O. quadricirrata clusters away from O. granulifera, thereby supporting the validity of the former., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)

Catenulida are mostly inhabitants of freshwater ecosystems, like ponds, streams, though the marine species are few (Larsson and Willems, 2010). About 110 species of catenulids are known worldwide, with most of the studies conducted in South America (Marcus, 1945a, 1945b; Noreña et al., 2005), North America (Kepner and Carter 1931; Nuttycombe and Waters, 1938) and Scandinavian Peninsula (Luther, 1960, Larsson and Willems, 2010; Larsson et al., 2008). The diversity of catenulids from India has not been studied intensively; however some reports on other turbellaria exists for the country (Annandale, 1912; Whitehouse, 1913; Kapadia, 1947; Basil and Fernando, 1975; Apte and Pitale, 2011; Kalita and Goswami, 2012; Venkataraman et al., 2015). The genus Stenostomum, however, has been studied extensively around the world with identification of over 60 species (Tyler et al., 2006-2016). This is first report of the genus from India. The present study was part of the project to catalogue the diversity of free living protozoan ciliates from the Hooghly stretch of the Ganga River during which the flatworms were found. The worms were studied based on the live observations, with recognition of characters which led to its identification. This study serves to fill knowledge gap in the freshwater flatworms from India.

The morphology and ontogenesis of a novel stylonychid ciliate, Tetmemena pustulata indica nov. subspec., were investigated using live observation and protargol preparation. The new subspecies was isolated from a water sample collected from the Thane Creek, Mumbai, India. At first glance, T. pustulata indica looked very similar in morphology and ontogenesis to the well-known Tetmemena pustulata, however, on detailed investigation some non-overlapping features in the ciliature were identified, i.e., the numbers of cirri in marginal rows, adoral membranelles, and bristles in dorsal kineties. These morphometric differences justified the separation at subspecies level. Furthermore, the resting cysts are different, i.e., with smooth external layer in T. pustulata indica whereas spinous in the nominotypical subspecies T. pustulata pustulata. The Venezuelan population of T. pustulata described by Foissner corresponds very well with the Indian population in the ciliature; however, the information on the resting cyst is lacking for the former. Our study presents an example of a cyst subspecies among hypotrich ciliates, and thus extends the concept which has been mainly reported for spathidiids., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.)

Present study, investigates a poorly known species of the genus Sterkiella, i.e., S. tricirrata, based on two populations isolated from soil samples collected from the Colfiorito Regional Park, Umbria Region, Italy and from the Silent Valley National Park, India. Both populations showed a highly similar morphology, however different ontogenetic pattern in between. The study confirms the validity of the species S. tricirrata which was considered to be a species within the Sterkiella histriomuscorum complex. The main ontogenetic difference between S. tricirrata and other species of the genus Sterkiella is the different mode of formation of anlagen V and VI of the proter in the former. In the phylogenetic analyses, Sterkiella tricirrata clusters with Sterkiella sinica within the stylonychine oxytrichids, in a clade away from the type species (Sterkiella cavicola) of the genus Sterkiella. The study highlights the importance of ontogenetic as well as molecular data in shedding light on the polyphyletic behavior of the genus Sterkiella. A detailed description of S. tricirrata based on morphology, ontogenesis and molecular phylogenetic methods is presented. Further, the improved diagnosis has been provided for the genus Sterkiella and the poorly known species S. tricirrata., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

A Gram-stain-positive, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterium (strain JC303T) isolated from a salt pan was identified based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis as a member of the genus Jeotgalibacillus. It was related most closely to Jeotgalibacillus salarius ASL-1T (99.1 % similarity), Jeotgalibacillusalimentarius YKJ-13T (97.9 %), Jeotgalibacillussoli JSM 081008 (97.9 %), Jeotgalibacillusmalaysiensis D5T (97.8 %), Jeotgalibacillusmarinus DSM 1297T (96.3 %), Jeotgalibacilluscampisalis SF-57T (96.1 %) and J. soli P9T (94.9 %). Genomic relatedness based on DNA-DNA hybridization of strain JC303T with the type strains of the closest related species was less than 40 %. Diphosphatidylglycerol, three aminophospholipids, an unidentified aminoglycolipid, two unidentified phospholipids and an unidentified lipid were the polar lipids of strain JC303T. Major (>10 %) fatty acids were anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C15 : 0 and iso-C14 : 0. Cell-wall amino acids contained peptidoglycan with l-lysine as the diagnostic diamino acid. Strain JC303T contained MK-7 as the predominant (96 %) menaquinone with the presence of a significant amount (4 %) of MK-8. The DNA G+C content was 43 mol%. On the basis of morphological, physiological, genotypic, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic analyses, strain JC303T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Jeotgalibacillus, for which the name Jeotgalibacillus alkaliphilus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JC303T (=KCTC 33662T=LMG 28756T). In addition, we propose to rename J. soli (Chen et al., 2010), an illegitimate homonym of the validly published name Jeotgalibacillus soli(Cunha et al., 2012) as Jeotgalibacillus terrae sp. nov. with type strain JSM 081008T (=DSM 22174T=KCTC 13528T).