Symbion is the name of a genus of aquatic animals, less than ½ mm wide, found living attached to the bodies of cold-water lobsters. They have sac-like bodies, and three distinctly different forms in different parts of their two-stage life-cycle. They appear so different from other animals that they were assigned their own, new phylum
Cycliophora shortly after they were discovered in 1995. This was the first new phylum of multicelled organism to be discovered since the
Loricifera in 1983.
Symbion was discovered in 1995 by Reinhardt Kristensen and Peter Funch on the mouthparts of the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus), and other, related, species have since been discovered on the American lobster (Homarus americanus, host to Symbion americanus) and the European lobster (
Homarus gammarus, host to an as yet un-named species of Symbion). The genus is so named because of its commensal relationship with the lobster (a form of symbiosis), it feeds on the leftovers from the lobster's own meals.
The genus Symbion are peculiar microscopic animals, with no obvious close relatives, and which was therefore given its own phylum, called
Cycliophora. The phylogenetic position of Symbion remains unclear: originally the phyla
Ectoprocta and
Entoprocta were considered possible relatives of Symbion, based on structural similarities. However, genetic studies suggest that Symbion may be more closely related to
Gnathifera.
Symbion americanus Obst, Funch & Kristensen, 2005Symbion pandora Funch & Kristensen, 1995