Ciliata

I am impressed with the fact that new species have been created without proper regard for the manifold variations which nearly all of the _Ciliata_ show, and I believe the 66 species might be safely reduced to 12 or 15.

Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 1906

Thus the Infusoria, including the Ciliata and the Suctoria, are usually littoral in their habitat, living upon the shore-dwelling, or attached, water plants and upon the animals frequenting them.

Marine Protozoa from Woods Hole Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission 21:415-468, 1901 1906

Infusoria (Ciliata, Acineta, &c.), and many other Protista, remain throughout life one single cell, and, nevertheless, this cell is as fully furnished with all the most important attributes of the soul, with sensation and volition, as any one of the higher animals with a nervous system.

Freie wissenschaft und freie lehr. English Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

Voluntary motion and conscious sensation (of pressure, light, warmth, &c.) come under our observation so undoubtedly in the commonest forms of infusorial animals -- for instance the Ciliata, that one of their most persevering observers, Ehrenberg, asserted undeviatingly to the day of his death that all Infusoria must possess nerves and muscles, organs of sense and of soul, as well as the higher animals.

Freie wissenschaft und freie lehr. English Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel 1876

Paramecium caudatum, also known as Silverslipper, is a pretty typical member of the group of Ciliata, and as the poem correctly indicates, most of the time it reproduces by simple cell division - fission.

ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science 2009