A revision of the Suctoria (Ciliophora, Kinetofragminophora) 1. Acineta and its morphological relatives Colin R. Curds Zoology Department, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD Contents Synopsis. . 75 Introduction .............. 75 Genus Acineta ' . 77 Genus Acinetides 109 Genus Conchacineta 114 Genus Crossacineta 119 Genus Cryptacineta . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 20 Genus Kellicotta 121 Genus Phyllacineta 122 Genus Veracinetq , 124 References . . 126 Index to species" " . 129 Synopsis The. species of Acineta and 7 morphologically related genera have been revised. A new diagnosis for each genus is given, with a key to its constituent species. Several genera recently erected by Jankowski (1978) have been synoriymise'd and^new one, Kellicotta n. gen., is described. All species are described and figured. Introduction The suctoria have received less attention than some of the other ciliate groups. Most papers in the past 50 years have been particularly concerned with the description of the different budding methods found in the group and the inclusion of these data in devising new classifications for the subclass. Keys to their identification have been few and this has led to taxonomic confusion particularly at the generic level. It is apparent that we are still unclear as to what consitutes a genus as far as the suctoria are concerned and this was the first major problem to be overcome. Many difficulties were encountered with the suctoria when preparing a generic key to all freshwater ciliates (Curds, 1982), but it was decided at the time that it was not within the province of that book to include major generic revisions and acceptable published classifications were adhered to as far as possible. The present publication is the first of a series of papers that should enable the ecologist and taxonomist to identify all species of suctoria described to date. The initial approach was to create a database of published information concerning suctorian genera on a computer. An on-line identification programme made it possible to be able to quickly com-pare the descriptions of species with published generic descriptions, and in this way the accuracy of the original and subsequent generic identifications could be assessed. In a surprising number of cases it was found that species had been assigned to incorrect genera. So far it has been necessary to erect one new genus and several recently described genera have been synonymised. It was Bull. Br. Mm. nat. Hist. (Zool.) 48(2): 75-129 Issued 25 April 1985 75
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