Ad
related to: protists other characteristics
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The species diversity of protists is severely underestimated by traditional methods that differentiate species based on morphological characteristics. The number of described protist species is very low (ranging from 26,000 [ 35 ] to over 76,000) [ c ] in comparison to the diversity of plants, animals and fungi, which are historically and ...
Protozoans are protists which feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. [ 87 ] [ 88 ] Historically, the protozoa were regarded as "one-celled animals", because they often possess animal -like behaviours, such as motility and predation , and lack a cell wall , as found in plants and many algae .
Protistology is a scientific discipline devoted to the study of protists, a highly diverse group of eukaryotic organisms. All eukaryotes apart from animals, plants and fungi are considered protists. [1]
A protist (/ ˈ p r oʊ t ɪ s t /) is any eukaryotic organism (one with cells containing a nucleus) that is not an animal, plant, or fungus.The protists do not form a natural group, or clade, since they exclude certain eukaryotes with whom they share a common ancestor; [a] but, like algae or invertebrates, the grouping is used for convenience.
Protists are distributed across all major groups of eukaryotes, including those that contain multicellular algae, green plants, animals, and fungi. If photosynthetic and fungal protists are distinguished from protozoa, they appear as shown in the phylogenetic tree of eukaryotic groups.
Amoebozoa is a major taxonomic group containing about 2,400 described species of amoeboid protists, [8] often possessing blunt, fingerlike, lobose pseudopods and tubular mitochondrial cristae. [7] [9] In traditional classification schemes, Amoebozoa is usually ranked as a phylum within either the kingdom Protista [10] or the kingdom Protozoa.
Foraminifera (/ f ə ˌ r æ m ə ˈ n ɪ f ə r ə / fə-RAM-ə-NIH-fə-rə; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of Rhizarian protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly an external shell (called a "test") of diverse forms and materials.
In other words, the term Myzozoa, meaning "to siphon the contents from prey", may be applied informally to the common ancestor of the subset of alveolates that are neither ciliates nor colponemids. Predation upon algae is an important driver in alveolate evolution, as it can provide sources for endosymbiosis of novel plastids.