Morphology, Morphogenesis, and Molecular Phylogeny of A nteholosticha multicirrata n. sp. (Ciliophora, Spirotrichea) with a Note on Morphogenesis of A . pulchra (Kahl, 1932) Berger, 2003

Two marine urostylid ciliates, A nteholosticha multicirrata n. sp. and A nteholosticha pulchra (Kahl, 1932) Berger, 2003, were collected from S outh K orea. These species were identified based on morphology, morphogenesis, and SSU rRNA gene sequence comparison. A nteholosticha multicirrata n. sp. is characterized by the following features: body size 90–125 × 30–45 μm in vivo, shape slender to ellipsoidal in outline, with yellow‐greenish cortical granules distributed along and between dorsal kineties and cirri; single contractile vacuole positioned on left at mid‐body; three frontal, five to seven frontoterminal, one buccal, one to two pretransverse and four to six transverse cirri; three complete dorsal kineties; one left and one right marginal cirral row; about 117 macronuclear nodules; and three to four micronuclei observed during morphogenesis. In addition, based on the observations of morphogenesis, we found that A . pulchra has pretransverse cirri, which were not described in detail in previous studies. Nuclear small subunit ribosomal RNA ( SSU rRNA ) gene was used to analyse their phylogenetic relationship, and the gene tree supports that the genus A nteholosticha is a highly polyphyletic group.