Paramecium caudatum

Paramecium caudatum is a species of unicellular protist in the phylum Ciliophora. They can reach 0.33 mm in length and are covered with minute hair-like organelles called cilia. The cilia are used in locomotion and feeding. The species is very common, and widespread in marine, brackish and freshwater environments. Paramecium caudatum is 170–330 micrometres long (usually 200–300 micrometres). The cell body is spindle-shaped, rounded at the front, tapering at the posterior to a blunt point. Early microscopists likened its shape to that of a slipper, and commonly referred to it as the "slipper animalcule." The pellicle is uniformly covered with cilia, and has a long oral groove, leading to deeply embedded oral cavity, lined with cilia (short, hair-like protoplasmic processes that serve as organs of locomotion and food capture). P. caudatum has two contractile vacuoles, which serve to excrete excess water taken up from the outside, regulating the water contents of the body. Radially distributed "collecting canals" give the contractile vacuoles a distinctive star-like shape. The cell is enclosed by a cellular envelope (cortex) densely studded with spindle-shaped extrusomes called trichocysts. P. caudatum feed on bacteria and small eukaryotic cells, such as yeast and flagellate algae. the accumulated food particles, at the posterior end of the cytopharynx, are directed by the long cilia into the rounded, ball-like mass in the endoplasm called food vacuole. The food vacuoles are circulated by the streaming movement of the endoplasm which is called cyclosis. In hypotonic conditions (freshwater), the cell absorbs water by osmosis. It regulates osmotic pressure with the help of bladder-like contractile vacuoles, gathering internal water through its star-shaped radial canals and expelling the excess through the plasma membrane. When moving through the water, they follow a spiral path while rotating on the long axis. Paramecium caudatum has two nuclei (a large macronucleus and a single compact micronucleus).