portrait

Description:

Frontonia (front-own-ee-a) is a peniculine ciliate and as such is closely related to the familiar Paramecium. The mouth is supported by strong rods which assists Frontonia in ingesting its preferred food - diatoms and other moderate sized algae. The mouth is located at about 10 o clock. Like many peniculines the cell has many extrusomes lying just under the cell surface, and these are expelled when the cells are challenged. Differential interference contrast.