Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2009
The genus Hysterocineta Diesing, 1866, is a small genus comprised, until the present description, of only four species. Together with the genus Ptychostomum Stein, 1861, it forms the family Hysterocinetidae Diesing, 1866, which is a constituent family of the suborder Thigmotricha Chatton & Lwoff, 1949. The holotrichous ciliates belonging to this genus are characterized by the possession of elongate, flattened, flexible bodies possessing an inverted V- or U-shaped sucker at their antero-ventral margins, and a cytostome and cytopharynx at the posterior end.