Arachnula

Arachnula
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Protozoa
Phylum:	Cercozoa
Class:	Proteomyxidea
Order:	Aconchulinida
Family:	Vampyrellidae
Genus:	Arachnula Cienkowsky, 1876[1]

Arachnula is a genus of amoeboid protist first described by Leon Cienkowski in 1876.^[2]

It's phylogenetic position is a subject of some controversy. David Bass and colleagues considered it to be a vampyrellid within the Endomyxa clade of Rhizaria,^[3] and the SSU rDNA sequence isolated from an organism described as Arachnula impatiens is indeed very close to that of the vampyrellid Theratromyxa.^[4] The identification of this organism as Arachnula has, however, been questioned; and a separate amoeba identified as Arachnula by Yonas Isaak Tekle and colleagues groups in molecular phylogenies close to the amoebozoans Filamoeba and Flamella.^[5] Which of these isolates corresponds to that originally described by Cienkowski is unresolved.

Notes

1. Neave, Sheffield Airey, ed. (1939). Nomenclator Zoologicus 1. London: The Zoological Society of London. p. 271.
2. Cienkowski L (1876). "Über einige Rhizopoden und verwandte Organismen". Arch Mikrosk Anat 12: 15–50. doi:10.1007/bf02933887.
3. Bass D, Chao EE, Nikolaev S; et al. (February 2009). "Phylogeny of novel naked Filose and Reticulose Cercozoa: Granofilosea cl. n. and Proteomyxidea revised". Protist 160 (1): 75–109. doi:10.1016/j.protis.2008.07.002. PMID 18952499.
4. Hess S, Sausen N, Melkonian M (February 2012). "Shedding Light on Vampires: The Phylogeny of Vampyrellid Amoebae Revisited". PLOS ONE 7 (2): e31165. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031165. PMC 3280292. PMID 22355342.
5. Lahr D J G, Nguyen T, Lin J H, Katz L A (June 2011). "Comprehensive Phylogenetic Reconstruction of Amoebozoa Based on Concatenated Analyses of SSU-rDNA and Actin Genes". PLOS ONE 6 (7): e22780. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022780.

References

• Berney, Cédric. "Acachnula impatients". London: The National History Museum. Retrieved 28 December 2012.