Ephelota coronata Wright, 1858

Chatterjee, Tapas, Dovgal, Igor & Fernandez-Leborans, Gregorio, 2021, A checklist of ciliates (Ciliophora) inhabiting on cnidarians, Zootaxa 5039 (2), pp. 151-178 : 157-158

Ephelota coronata Wright, 1858

Record as epibiont on cnidarias: Root (1922) has mentioned that Ephelota coronata was found on hydroids Obelia commissuralis and O. geniculata from Woods Hole, USA.

Record as epibiont on other hosts: Wright (1858) described and illustrated E. coronata found on the shell of gastropod, which was used by the hermit crab. This species was possiblly registered by Stankovic et al. (2002) as Ephelota sp. on krill Euphausia superba (Dana, 1852) and Thysanoessa macrura G.O. Sars, 1883 from the Antarctic ( Dovgal 2013). In addition, E. coronata was found as epibiont on copepod Metridia pacifica Brodsky, 1950 in the North Pacific Ocean ( Endo et al. 2020) and on copepod Pontella spinipes Giesbrecht, 1889 in the southeastern Arabian Sea (Purushothaman, A. et al. 2020)..

Remarks: Kent (1881) redescribed E. coronata attached to “zoophytes” and tunicates Polyzoa from coasts of the Guernsey and Jersey Islands ( UK) but the morphology of the Kent’s species disagree with Wright’s diagnosis and picture. In the keys for marine suctorians identification given by Kahl (1934) the species was indicated as E. coronata Kent, 1881 nec Wright, 1858 with diagnosis and illustration modified from Kent (1881). Several finds of E. coronata represent confusion and misidentifications because many authors used Kent’s illustration and diagnosis e.g., Calkins (1902) has indicated E. coronata (with Wright’s authorship) as found on campanularian hydroid from Atlantic coast of USA near Woods Hole. However, the Calkins’ description and figure of the species correspond to E. coronata sensu Kent (1881) . Ephelota coronata was also included in the list of species found at the British Columbia coast ( Canada) as epibiont on algae and hydroids ( Wailes 1943; Mccazuley & Hancock 1971) but the description and illustrations given in Wailes (1943) corresponds to E. coronata Kent, 1881 .

Dovgal (2013) indicated that the name Ephelota coronata Kent, 1881 is a primary homonym of E. coronata Wright, 1858 and proposed the name Hemiophrya dalielly Holt, 1891 in the name combination Ephelota dalielly ( Holt, 1891) as a substitute name for E. coronata Kent, 1881 . Consequently, the species found by Calkins (1902) and Wailes (1943) must be identified as E. dalielly . At the same time, Chen et al. (2008a) believed that E. coronata is most likely conspecific to E. crustaceorum (Haller, 1880) but this conclusion was based on descriptions and illustrations of Kent (1881) and Calkins (1902) thus applies to E. dalielly .