What is a Stentor?

These are single celled animalswhich are covered by hair like fibers called cilia. They may be free-swimming or attached to something else. When swimming, they are oval in shape and they become trumpet-shaped once they get attached.

These are single celled animalswhich are  covered by hair like fibers called cilia. They may be free-swimming or attached to something else. When swimming, they are oval in shape and they become trumpet-shaped once they get attached.

There are two common species – one is bluish in color while the other is green because small green algae live in its interior. The ability to swim is done by cilia. When attached, the cell can be shortened by contractile fibrils.

Around the mouth or aboral end, cilia are flattened and called membranelles. The mouth or cytosome opens into an oral chamber or passageway containing an undulating membrane made of fused cilia. At the base of this chamber is a cyopharynx, which has no cilia. Food that has been swept in by the membrane is enclosed in a vacuole, circulated through the cytoplasm, and digested. Food consists of dead and living organic material. Digestive waste is eliminated through a pore near the mouth. 

Reproduction is asexual, by transverse fission. The long chainlike macronucleus rounds up and each micronucleus forms a spindle.