Monograph of the Spathidiida (Ciliophora, Haptoria), 2007 Vol I: Protospathidiidae, Arcuospathidiidae, Apertospathulidae Monographiae Biologicae Series, Vol. 81

The present monograph carefully revises the taxonomy, nomenclature, and ecology of all nominal species of spathidiids and shows that spathidiid diversity has been greatly underestimated. Based on the reinvestigation of described species with modern methods and the first description of over 50 new species, the family Spathidiidae is split into four families and 20 genera. Each species is described and figured in detail. Two identification keys are provided.

Prof. W. Foissner is Professor (Extraordinarius) of Zoology at Salzburg University. Since 1996 he has been President of German Society of Protozoologists. He has on his name over 500 publications, including about 300 peer-reviewed papers and 8 books (with together over 5000 pages), in international and national scientific journals, most about ciliates, but some on flagellates, naked and testate amoebae, and sporozoans. He is an invited speaker at many meetings. His main interests are Taxonomy, phylogeny, evolution, ecology and biodiversity of freshwater and soil protozoa, mainly ciliates and testate amoebae.

The Spathidiidae are a very "difficult" group of freshwater and soil ciliates

The last revision dates back to KAHL in 1931

Now, about 200 species have been described in widely scattered journals, and thus most species are indeterminable for routine workers

The monograph critically puts together all information and describes each species in detail, including 50 new taxa found world-wide

Description includes modern electron microscopical data