Mayorella vespertilioides Page, 1983


Mayorella vespertilioides 1-7 and 10-13: locomotive; 3: nucleus (stained preparation); 8: cell in "non-directed" movement; 9: floating form.
Scale bar: 20 mkm; 8: 10 mkm

Mayorella vespertilioides 1: nucleus; 2: cell surface; 3: bacteria in the cytoplasm; 4 mitochondria.
Scale bar: 500nm

  • Locomotive form variable, usualy it is wider in the anterior part, sometimes it looks like an irregular triangle with anterior hyaline border. The cell forms short, wide conical pseudopodia or (more rarely) small hyaline dactylopodia. No differentiated uroid in most cells, in some - small morulate uroid. Moving cell sometimes has 3-5 irregular, provisional dorso-lateral ridges. Length in locomotion 44-90 mkm (average 64 mkm), breadth 8-30 mkm (average 18 mkm), L/B about 1.5. Floating form of radial tyoe, with 5-7 long, tapering pseudopoida. Each pseudopodium consists of cilindrical, granular basal part and conical tapering hyaline part.
  • Single spherical or slightly elongate nucleus, about 7 mkm in diameter, with central endosome about 4 mkm in diameter. One contractile vacuole. 25-30 small bipiramidal cristals in the cytoplasm. No cysts found.
  • Cell coat is a "cuticle" (Page, 1988), about 200 nm in thickness. It consits of three distinct layers of fibrillar matrix. Most close to the membrane layer consists of fine fibrills, parallel to the cell surface, its total thickness is about 60 nm. Over it is a thin (about 15 nm in thickness),very dense layer. The outer layer looks amorphous, its thickness is about 55 nm. There are prismatical elements, embedded in this matrix. They penetrates all three layers of matrix and are even longer - their outer ends are free, forming thus the outer border of the cuticle. Mitochondria have dense matrix. Bacteria present in the cytoplasm. Dictyosomes are not numerous, consist of 5-8 cisternae.
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