Stichotrich

In a classification system proposed by Eugene Small and Denis Lynn in 1985, Stichotrichia formed a subclass containing four orders: Stichotrichida, Urostylida, Sporadotrichida and Plagiotomida.

[1] Although the group was made up of species traditionally classified among the "hypotrichs"—ciliates possessing compound ciliary organelles called cirri—it excluded euplotid ciliates such as Euplotes and Diophrys, which were placed in the subclass Hypotrichia.

[3][4] Like the euplotids, stichotrichs (or hypotrichs, in the sense of Gao et al., 2016)[3] have body cilia fused into cirri, but these are mostly arranged into rows, running along the ventral surface or edges of the cell.

Characteristic genera include Stylonychia, Oxytricha, Uroleptus and Urostyla.

The term stichotrich derives from the ancient greek στίχος (stíkhos), meaning "row", and θρίξ, τριχός (thríx, trikhós), meaning 'hair',[5][6] because of the arrangement into rows of the cilia.