Turbellarian taxonomic database

Microstomum bispiralis Diagnosis


Mature animal of four zooids 3-4 mm long; body spindle-shaped, tapering posteriorly, anteriorly set off as an abruptly obtuse, mobile, exploratory organ; no posterior dorsal elongation of one zooid over the next following; ciliation uniform; no anterior pigment spots; opening of the ciliated pits round; preoral enteric blind sac short, conical, abruptly tapering, extending only to the plane of the ciliated pits; cerebral ganglia wholly anterior to the preoral enteric blind sac; cuticular copulatory organ deeply bent in a double spiral; two posterior-lateral testes, one developing earlier than the other.

[From Stirewalt MA (1937): 320]


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