Parablepharismea is a class of free-living
marine and
brackish
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...
anaerobic
Anaerobic means "living, active, occurring, or existing in the absence of free oxygen", as opposed to aerobic which means "living, active, or occurring only in the presence of oxygen." Anaerobic may also refer to:
*Adhesive#Anaerobic, Anaerobic ad ...
ciliate
The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a differen ...
s
that form a major clade of
obligate {{wiktionary, obligate
As an adjective, obligate means "by necessity" (antonym '' facultative'') and is used mainly in biology in phrases such as:
* Obligate aerobe, an organism that cannot survive without oxygen
* Obligate anaerobe, an organism tha ...
anaerobes within the SAL group (
Spirotrichea,
Armophorea, and
Litostomatea), together with the classes
Muranotrichea and
Armophorea.
Parablepharismea are medium to large, elongated ciliates with navicular outline and holotrichous somatic ciliature composed of dikinetids without postciliodesmata.
Their oral ciliature is composed of bipartite paroral membrane and adoral zone of membranelles. They host a thick coat of prokaryotic ectosymbionts and cytoplasmic endosymbionts. They are found in micro-oxic marine to brackish habitats.
Parablepharismea may be related to the deep sea
Cariacotrichea ciliates.
This class contains a single order, Parablepharismida,
and family Parablepharismidae.
The genus ''Parablepharisma''
includes five species. The genus ''Kahlium'' includes a single species ''K. chlamydophorum'' with segmented paroral area and a twisted posterior.
References
Intramacronucleata
Ciliate classes
{{Ciliate-stub