I came across the following diagrams depicting two kinds of arrangement of flagella over cells.
Now according to my (very unreliable) school textbook, the arrangements are termed as:
A - Cephalotrichous (tuft of flagella on one end)
B - Lophotrichous (tufts of flagella on both ends)
Whereas another (equally unreliable) book states the exact opposite:
A - Lophotrichous (tuft of flagella on one end)
B - Cephalotrichous (tufts of flagella on both ends)
A spot of cursory Googling reflects this sort of confusion online (compare the images and their labels here) as well.
According to Wikipedia that arrangement A is lophotrichous, but it makes no reference to arrangement B though.
I tried to figure it out, going by the smattering of Greek I picked up as a Bio. student ( Cephalos = Something to do with the head ; Lophos = something to do with a peak/protuberance ), I arrived at:
Hmm... so cephalotrichous probably means you find the tuft on one "end" (so arrangement A), and ipso facto lophotrichous is arrangement B.
But I guess, I ended up putting a little too much thought into it...
Cephalotrichous is probably used to indicate you have a tuft on the "head" in addition to another tuft on the "tail" (so arrangement B), and ipso facto lophotrichous is arrangement A.
At this stage I'm not sure what's more serious: my inability to find an authoritative answer to my question... or my tendency to overthink stuff
I'm in a fix.
Could someone clarify, citing (multiple, if possible) authoritative sources, on the distinction between a "cephalotrichous" and a "lophotrichous" arrangement?