Wilbertomorphidae is a family of

karyorelictea Karyorelictea is a class of ciliates in the subphylum Postciliodesmatophora. Most species are members of the microbenthos community, that is, microscopic organisms found in the marine interstitial habitat, though one genus, ''Loxodes'', is foun ...

ciliate The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagellum, eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a ...

s. The family is monotypic, because it contains a single genus ''Wilbertomorpha'' with a single known species, ''Wilbertomorpha colpoda''. Like most karyorelicteans, ''Wilbertomorpha'' lives in the marine interstitial habitat, between sediment grains. The cells are oval-shaped and about 45 µm long by 15 µm wide. Its distinctive features are a reduced oral apparatus ("mouth") and colorless granules of different shapes (rod-, cross-, and oval-shaped) in the cortex of the cell. Its

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

relationship to other families of karyorelictean ciliates is unclear, because its morphology (ciliature) most closely resembles the order Loxodida, whereas

molecular phylogenetics Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...

places it closer to the family

Geleiidae Geleiidae is a family of karyorelict ciliates. It is sometimes synonymized with family Aveliidae. Geleiidae are very large ciliates (200–5000 µm), with a cylindrical shape, and a thinner, often beak-shaped, apical region. They are charac ...

. It was first collected from a beach at

Qingdao Qingdao (, also spelled Tsingtao; , Mandarin: ) is a major city in eastern Shandong Province. The city's name in Chinese characters literally means " azure island". Located on China's Yellow Sea coast, it is a major nodal city of the One Belt ...

, China. The name ''Wilbertomorpha'' was coined in honor of the German ciliatologist Norbert Wilbert.

References

Karyorelictea Ciliate families Monogeneric eukaryote families Monotypic SAR supergroup taxa {{Ciliate-stub