nassophorea nassophorea the nassophorea are a class of ciliates. members are free-living, usually in freshwater but also in marine and soil environments. the mouth is anterior ventral and leads to a curved cytopharynx supported by a prominent palisade of rods or nematodesmata, forming a structure called a cyrtos or nasse, typical of this and a few other classes. when present, extrusomes take the form of fibrous trichocysts. cilia are usually monokinetids, but vary from order to order. nassophorea nassula sp. scientific classification domain: eukaryota clade: diaphoretickes clade: tsar clade: sar clade: alveolata phylum: ciliophora subphylum: intramacronucleata class: nassophoreasmall & lynn 1981 typical orders synhymeniida nassulida microthoracida the synhymeniida and nassulida have mostly uniform cilia arising from monokinetids. among the former, and a few members of the latter, there is a series of small polykinetids running from below the mouth to the left side of the body and sometimes almost circling the cell, called a frange or synhymenium. other forms only have three oral membranelles, sometimes extending out of the oral cavity, with or without a paroral membrane. these are usually medium in size, sometimes larger, and cylinder shaped. the microthoracida typically have three or more oral membranelles, with at least a vestige of the paroral membrane occurring during cell division. the body cilia are sparse, and often arise from dikinetids, with cirrus-like polykinetids occurring in the marine genus discotricha. these are usually small and ellipsoid or crescent shaped, with the right side of the body curved outward, and generally have a rigid pellicle. as first defined by eugene small and denis lynn in 1981, the nassophorea also included the peniculids and, in a separate subclass, the hypotrichs. more recent schemes restore these to their earlier positions, leaving this group a relatively small collection of less well-known forms.