In a paper just published in Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, we describe a new genus and species of apostome ciliate–Lynnia grapsolytica. The genus honors the recently deceased Dennis Lynn–a major ciliate biologist–while the specific epithet refers to the way the parasite chews up most of the tissues of its host, the very common Pacific stripped shore crab, Pachygrapsus crassipes. The parasite is a probable parasitoid–obligatorily killing its host to continue on with its life cycle.

Congrats to Dan, who did this work as a side project. It’s a substantial, multifaceted integrative taxonomy paper, also including histology and host survivorship analysis.

See our press release or the paper for more.