Edaphoallogromia australica Meisterfeld, Holzmann and Pawlowski, 2001
Diagnosis: Shell organic-walled, flexible, colorless. Shell spherical, sub-spherical ovoid or pyriform in shape. Shell wall colorless, variable in thickness, 0.6-4.6 µm. Aperture sub-terminal, oblique, flexible. Cell bi-symmetrically, with a distinct pseudopodial peduncle, laying at one side within the test. Shell diameter 35-80 µm. Several contractile vacuoles. Multinucleate, up to 100 nuclei or more. Nuclei 3.5-4.4 µm in diameter, with some small nucleoli laying close to the nuclear membrane. Cytoplasm with numerous rod-shaped crystals, 1.1-2.4 µm long. No resting stages have been observed.
Measurements. cell 40-80 µm, multi-nucleated, c. 50 nuclei pro cell, nuclei c. 3.4-3.7 µm in diameter.
Habitat: Freshwater and soil. The type material of E. australica was obtained from tropical forest humus and described as a terrestrial species (Meisterfeld et al. 2001), while a second population was found in a domestic tropical aquarium in Germany, 2017, where it lived between and from cyanobacteria (Oscillatoria sp.) on older leaves of Vallisneria spiralis and Hygrophila corymbose. Concerning the biogeographic distribution of the Australian species, it seems remarkable to find E. australica in Europe, but as the European material came from a domestic tropical aquarium, it is impossible to find out where the “European” species originated from. It may have been introduced with non-local plants which could originate from all over the world.
