Video clips
Ptygura 1
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Ptygura - Wheel animal anchored to
the aquatic plant Myriophyllum and living in a self-built tube. Wheel animals are
highly specialised species of Nemathelminthae.
A crown of circular moving cilia gives the impression of a rotating wheel.
Ptygura 2
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Ptygura pilula - Wheel of cilia in perfection: chewing apparatus
continuously grinding the food whirled into the tube by cilia.
Its ingenious combination of muscles and complicated tiny levers is a master piece
of "fine adjustment in nature". Different species can be identified by their
chewing apparatuses.