polystomeadj.n.

1859 J. R. Greene Man. Animal Kingdom I. 77 ‘Acineta Forms’..rather constitute a distinct group of Infusoria, to which the term ‘polystome’ might, without objection, be perhaps applied. For each of the radiating filaments..with which the Acinetæ are provided is, in truth, a retractile tube, susceptible of elongation to a remarkable extent, and furnished at its extremity with an adherent disk.

1987 Canad. Jrnl. Zool. 65 1567 A new species of polystome monogenean Polystomoidella mayesi, is described from the urinary bladder of a Malaysian box turtle.

1993 E. N. K. Clarkson Invertebr. Palaeontol. & Evol. (ed. 3) v. 133/1 Meandroid genera have a polystome system in which hundreds of mouths with their adjacent tentacles connect in each ‘valley’ with a single elongated enteron.

2003 Internat. Jrnl. Parasitol. 33 137 Variation in host-specific infectivity was studied in monogenean polystome parasites.

1880 Amer. Naturalist 14 133 I was recently searching the gill-filaments of a Necturus..for specimens of a Polystome.

1932 Q. Rev. Biol. 7 458 The acetabula of the polystomes are ‘anterior’ in position, since they are found at the aboral end of the worm.

1968 C. W. Schwabe & A. Kilejian in M. Florkin & B. T. Scheer Chem. Zool. II. iii. vi. 526 Even the polystomes which parasitize the alimentary tract of turtles are restricted to such nonglandular sites as the nostrils, mouth, and esophagus.

2002 Proc. Royal Soc. B. 269 535 The basal position of the polystome from lungfish within the Polystomatidae suggests that the family arose during the evolutionary transition between actinopterygians and sarcopterygians, ca. 425 million years (Myr) ago.