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A flagellum (/ f l ə ˈ dʒ ɛ l əm /; pl.: flagella) (Latin for 'whip' or 'scourge') is a hair-like appendage that protrudes from certain plant and animal sperm cells, from fungal spores , and from a wide range of microorganisms to provide motility.
The evolution of flagella is of great interest to biologists because the three known varieties of flagella – (eukaryotic, bacterial, and archaeal) each represent a sophisticated cellular structure that requires the interaction of many different systems.
A common characteristic of opisthokonts is that flagellate cells, such as the sperm of most animals and the spores of the chytrid fungi, propel themselves with a single posterior flagellum. It is this feature that gives the group its name. In contrast, flagellate cells in other eukaryote groups propel themselves with one or more anterior ...
Among protoctists and microscopic animals, a flagellate is an organism with one or more flagella. Some cells in other animals may be flagellate, for instance the spermatozoa of most animal phyla. Flowering plants do not produce flagellate cells, but ferns, mosses, green algae, and some gymnosperms and closely related plants do so. [2]
Typically, one flagellum is very short, and does not protrude from the cell, while the other is long enough to be seen with light microscopy. In some species, such as Euglena mutabilis, both flagella are "non-emergent"—entirely confined to the interior of the cell's reservoir—and consequently cannot be seen in the light microscope.
They have a ribbon-like transverse flagellum with multiple waves that beats to the cell's left, and a more conventional one, the longitudinal flagellum, that beats posteriorly. [ 18 ] [ 19 ] [ 20 ] The transverse flagellum is a wavy ribbon in which only the outer edge undulates from base to tip, due to the action of the axoneme which runs along it.
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Inside a cilium and a flagellum is a microtubule-based cytoskeleton called the axoneme. The axoneme of a primary cilium typically has a ring of nine outer microtubule doublets (called a 9+0 axoneme), and the axoneme of a motile cilium has two central microtubules in addition to the nine outer doublets (called a 9+2 axoneme).