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Specimen
008
A colony of Stentor coeruleus. Stentor coeruleus is a very large ciliate that measures from 0.5 to 2 millimetres when fully extended. Stentor coeruleus resembles a long trumpet, with its mouth at the wide end - hair-like cilia at the mouth sweep food down into the narrow gullet. It attaches itself to objects and extends and contracts as it feeds. However, it can also swim freely while both fully extended or contracted.It has the ability to contract into a ball through the contraction of its many myonemes - contractile protein filaments in its cytoplasm. Stentor coeruleus is known for its regenerative abilities. When this organism is cut in half, each half is able to regenerate a half-sized cell that has its normal anatomy and will look the same way it did prior to being cut. |