In the winter of 1995, mass mortality occurred in cultured flounder, Paralichthys olivaceus in Gurongpo, Kyoungbuk, Korea. From the observations of moribund and dead fish, parasitic ciliates, which were shown as white spots to the naked eye, were considered to be involved in the mass mortality. From heavily infected flounders, histopathological, morphological and biological characterization of these ciliates were carried out. In the histological observation, many ciliates were found under the epithelia of gill filaments and skin, and caused hyperplasia of epithelial and mucus cells at the infected areas. The ciliates found on the body surface, fins and gills were very similar to Cryptocaryon irritans. However the ciliates showed two different patterns of reproductian, i.e., typical form(palintomy)and atypical form(budding plus multiple fission) at $16^{\circ}C$ of water temperature. The occurrence ratio between typical and atypical form was about 3:2. Tomitogenesis takes 8-14 days in the typical and 13-15 days in the atypical form. In the viability test at different temperatures and salinities, the typical form died below 30‰ at $12^{\circ}C$, below 20‰ at $16^{\circ}C$, below 15‰ at $20^{\circ}C$, and below 25‰ at $24^{\circ}C$, respectively. On the other hand, the atypical form died below 20‰ at $12^{\circ}C$, below 15‰ at 16-$20^{\circ}C$, and below 25‰ at $24^{\circ}C$, respectively. The results suggested that the atypical has better viability at low salinity than that of the typical at low temperatures. In the excystment time and success rates of excystment according to temperatures, the typical form showed 8 days, 30% at $12^{\circ}C$ : 6.5 days, 50%, at $16^{\circ}C$ : 5.5 days, 75% at $20^{\circ}C$ : and 7 days, 10% at $24^{\circ}C$, respectively. On the other hand, the atypical form showed 15.5 days at $12^{\circ}C$ : 14 days, 76.6% at $16^{\circ}C$ : 12 days, 72.2% at $20^{\circ}C$ : 10 days 31.6% at $24^{\circ}C$, respectively. The results suggested that the atypical form had longer excystment time than that of the typical form at any temperature and showed better stability at low temperatures.