- publication
- 13-03-2021
The order Himatismenida (Amoebozoa, Discosea) comprises naked amoebae with an organic coat that is located on the dorsal surface of the cell. The phylogenetic relationships among deeply branching genera of the Himatismenida are unclear, as data on the species diversity of the himatismenid genera is largely restricted to the derived genus . Here, we describe two new amoeba species that branch at the base of the order Himatismenida, evidenced by SSU rRNA gene and multigene analyses. Among them, a freshwater species gen. nov., sp. nov. has a dorsal cell coat consisting of flat, oval scales. This species forms a clade at the base of the Himatismenida, and the previously described , its closest relative, is transferred into the new genus as comb. nov. Although the two species are barely distinguishable by their sequence data, they are clearly distinct in morphology. Using this data, we can report the first evidence of a dorsal cell coat consisting of scales outside of the genus . The other species has a marine origin and branches deeply, close to the root of the phylogenetic tree of Himatismenida. Based on the morphology of this amoeba, it should be described as sp. nov., a new species of the genus . Analyses of the phylogenetic relationships and the ultrastructure of the deeply branching himatismenids, together with several of the newly obtained gene sequences of and suggest that some elements of the dorsal cell coat of may be ancestral for Himatismenida and have been partly retained in various more derived species of this clade, in particular, . Although actin and gene data do not resolve the higher-level relationships in Himatismenida, they correspond to the grouping of species within most genera.
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