portrait

Description:

Frontonia (front-own-ee-a) is a peniculine ciliate and closely related to the familiar Paramecium. The mouth (upper left) is supported by strong rods which assists Frontonia in ingesting its preferred food - diatoms (as here) and other moderate sized algae. Like many peniculines the cell has many extrusomes lying just under the cell surface, and these are expelled when the cells are challenged. This species has black pigment granules. Differential interference contrast.