A new species of Arcella

ByBruce Taylor January 22, 2025August 19, 2025

A shelled amoeba I discovered nearly eleven years ago finally has a name! Meet Arcella prismatica Taylor, Strueder-Kypke & Siemensma, 2025.

So far, this pretty morphotype has only been found at two sites, a brown-water lake in Ottawa’s Mer Bleue Bog, and a roadside mire in the Cree Nation of Chisasibi, on the Quebec coast of James Bay.

Our paper will spend 2025 behind a paywall (after which access will be free). In the meantime, a good description of the critter is available on Ferry Siemensma’s site. And here’s some video:

Biodiversity | Conservation | Testate Amobae

A New Thing in an Old Place
ByBruce Taylor June 4, 2014November 23, 2015

My daughter slept on the couch last night because there was a “giant centipede” in her room. A search on “giant centipede” turns up exotic beauties like the fabulous foot-long Scolopendra gigantea, which eats mice, snakes, lizards, birds and frogs and has even figured out how to catch bats by dangling from cave ceilings . …

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Ciliates | Protist Homes | Protistology

Protist Homes 2 — Calyptotricha pleuronemoides
ByBruce Taylor February 13, 2015October 30, 2019

A few years ago, I looked in a sample of water from a bog lake, and saw something like a hyperactive avocado shifting around inside in a tiny kerosene lamp: The architect of that pretty dwelling is the ciliate Calyptotricha pleuronemoides. The species and genus were discovered in 1882, in samples from a pond near…

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Protistology

It’s Alive!
ByBruce Taylor November 2, 2024November 12, 2024

When conditions for life are unfavourable, some protists can cheat death by entering a cryptobiotic state. Usually, they do it by enclosing themselves within thick-walled structures called “resting cysts,” which protect vital genetic material from dehydration and extreme temperatures. Tucked away in their cysts, the cells shut down all metabolic activities and wait for the…

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Protist Homes | Testate Amobae

Protist Homes – 1
ByBruce Taylor December 8, 2013December 10, 2014

I’ve added a number to the title of this post, because I expect to make “Protist Homes” a regular feature. I had intended it to be an idea-free zone, devoted to uncomplicated wonderment (kind of like the tours of celebrity homes and stately residences on HGTV). But I know some ideas and research will creep…

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Protistology

Outsider Science
ByBruce Taylor November 14, 2013November 19, 2013

When I was eight years old, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be this guy: http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk273/BruceDSTaylor/madscientist_zps52710f31.jpg Forty-five years later, I finally look a bit like that. It’s not the wild hair and bulging eyes (which I’ve always had): it’s the glassware. At 53, I finally have an…

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Ciliates | Protistology

More on Calyptotricha pleuronemoides
ByBruce Taylor February 18, 2015February 18, 2015

In my previous post on the lorica-dwelling scuticociliate Calyptotricha pleuronemoides, I mentioned that only two substantial articles have been written about the species since its discovery (apart from brief descriptions in various places). Until yesterday, I’d been unable to find the second article, which appeared in the German microscopy journal Mikrokosmos in 1999. Luckily, one…

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