Talk:Peritrich

Individuals animals are generally between 0.1 and 2 mm long although for those species with a highly contractile stalk, the maximum extended length can be up to 3 mm.

I'm pretty sure that many peritrichs are much smaller than this - 0.05 mm sounds typical. That's not counting the stalk, but then, not all peritrichs have stalks. I haven't been able to find any info on the full range of peritrich sizes, though. Where exactly do these numbers come from? Josh

The figures come from my own post-grad notes from the microscope when categorising the micro-fauna of activated sludges from sewage treatment plants in the London area in 1968 - 1969. The individual animals associated with the floc particles tended to be large and it is very likely that we would not have been observing many smaller cilliates. I would be happy to accept that there are many Peritichs at or smaller than 0.05mm - I don't have personal evidence for these - I was noting in this topic the unusually large maximum that has been observed. As I read my notes, many of the scale lines are against extend individuals of Vorticella and related spp. Velela 20:24, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ok, that sounds good. I'll happily trust your maximum and put it back in the article as a note about the stalks. I still wonder what the range of size for the cells themselves is, though. Josh