Abstract
THE purpose of the memoir before us is to set forth a description of 39 new species and n new genera of Amoebae and to propose a classification of Amoebae. That a revision of the systematics of Amoebae is desirable is unquestioned. The author has endeavoured to obtain a secure basis for his revision by prolonged observation of the various species, several of which have been raised in cultures from a single example. Variations within the species such as have been frequently assumed and even asserted to occur by some writers were not found, and the author states that most free-living amoebae can be recognised specifically at least as readily as ciliates or beetles. No special difficulty is met with in classifying about three-fourths of all the known species of Amoebæ, but the remainder are small species the morphology of which has not been studied with sufficient care for the purpose. The supposed shapelessness of Amoebæ has led to previous attempts to classify species wholly with respect to nuclear characters, but the author states that such a systematic basis is no more defensible here than it would be in other protozoa. The genus Protamœba has been defined as lacking nucleus and vacuoles; the author suggests that the enucleate daughters which occasionally arise during fission of an amoeba have provided the basis for this genus, the validity of which he therefore doubts, and Gloidium has scarcely a better standing.
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References
"Taxonomy of the Amebas, with Descriptions of Thirty-nine new Marine and Freshwater Species". By Asa Arthur Schaeffer. Papers from the Department of Marine Biology of the. Carnegie Institution of Washington. 115 pp. 12 plates. Washington, 1926.
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Classification of Amœbæ1. Nature 118, 536 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118536a0