Description of Bryceella perpusilla n. sp. (Monogononta: Proalidae), a New Rotifer Species from Terrestrial Mosses, with Notes on the Ground Plan of Bryceella Remane, 1929

摘要

We here describe the new proalid rotifer species Bryceella perpusilla n. sp. on the basis of light and electron microscopy. The species, certainly representing one of the smallest rotifer and even metazoan species at all, was obtained in January 2008 from terrestrial mosses of North-west Germany. Bryceella perpusilla n. sp. is distinguished from other species of the genus by the very small size, the slender body outline, the short apical styli, the triangular rostrum, the outward curving, blunt and rod-shaped toes, the four-nucleated vitellogermarium, the slender manubria and the caudally directed alulae. With our observations, that can be used for future cladistic analyses of the Proalidae, we are able to define the generic diagnosis of Bryceella more precisely and to give an adapted species key. (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)