The population of the cell shown here, which has been documented by our research group of the Microscopical Society Berlin for many years, lives in freshwater. Acineta compressa is more commonly known from marine habitats, and Foissner et al. (1995) argues that the synonymization of A. flava and A. compressa for freswater occurrences would be incorrect. He observed and documented populations of A. flava in freshwater habitats whose cup shape is more similar to that of A. tuberosa, thus not resembling the shape drawn by Claparède & Lachmann.
However, the cup shape of the population native to streams in the extensive wetlands of the Lower Oder Valley fits well with the description of A. compressa.