Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 155 AN APPEAL FOR STABILIZATION OF CERTAIN NAMES IN THE PROTOZOAN FAMILY TETRAHYMENIDAE (SUBPHYLUM CILIOPHORA, ORDER HYMENOSTOMATIDA), WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE GENERIC NAME TETRAHYMENA FURGASON, 1940. Z.N.(S.) 625 By John O. Corliss, Ph.D.' (Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Box 4348, Chicago, Illinois 60680) and Ellsworth C. Dougherty, Ph.D., M.D.* (Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720) L Introduction: 1. In the past 25-30 years the scientific community has seen an un-precedented growth in research on the physiology (especially biochemistry) of ciliate Protozoa (see the series of volumes by Lwoff, 1951, Hutner and Lwoff, 1955, Hutner, 1964; and also references in Corliss, 1954a, 1965). The most profoundly studied ciliates have been several strains of the species for which the best name, in our opinion, is Tetrahymena pyriformis (Ehrenberg, 1830 (:96)), Lwoff, 1947 (: 103) (syn. Leucophrys pyriformis Ehrenberg, 1830). According to recent counts (Corliss, 1954a, 1957, 1965), investigations on the biology of this and a few congeneric species have yielded approximately 1 500 published works, of which a majority have been physiologically, as opposed to morphologically, oriented — definitive studies in the latter category having, moreover, been carried out largely in the last decade. The consequence of the historical lag in morphological behind physiological research on T. pyriformis and its congeners is that their literature up to the last decade was in a state of taxonomic and nomenclatural chaos, with T. pyriformis itself masquerading, in the last 30 to 40 years alone, under at least thirteen names (see Corliss, 1952a, 1953a). 2. It was, in fact, the eruption of work of a physiological nature that made imperative the study of the morphology, ta.-ionomy, and nomenclature of members of the Tetrahymena-gxoup,'^ or family Tetrahymenidae Corliss, 1952 (1952d : 4). The reason for the recency of definitive morphological studies on these (and many other) free-living ciliates — organisms long known with an extensive 19th and 20th century literature — is simply given: techniques adequate to reveal the detailed structure have come into general use only in relatively recent years (see Corliss, 1963). Most of the early descriptions (of the 18th and 1 9th centuries) were very crude, often insufficient to permit the certain recognition of species — and not infrequently of genera. Comparable diffi-culties even obtain with certain descriptions of the past few decades. The literature is therefore replete with doubtful names, and nomenclatural problems will doubtless plague the taxonomy of ciliates for some years to come. ' Work supported, in part, by National Science Foundation grants to the senior author; we are also indebted to Mrs. Patricia Williams for editorial assistance. -One of us (J.O.C.) designated this assemblage of ciliates as the " Colpidium-Glaucoma-Leucophrys-Tetrahymena", or " C-G-L-T ", group in a series of papers (see Corliss, 1950, 1951a, b, 1952a, 1953a), but this is shortened to " Tetrahymena-group " in the present paper. ' Deceased 21 December 1965. Bull. zool. Nomencl., Vol. 24, Part 3. June 1967.
An appeal for stabilization of certain names in the protozoan family Tetrahymenidae (subphylum Ciliophora, order Hymenostomatida), with special reference to the generic name Tetrahymena Furgason, 1940. Z.N. (S.) 625
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