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Protozoa (sg.: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a polyphyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic debris. [1] [2] Historically, protozoans were regarded as "one-celled animals".
A unicellular organism, also known as a single-celled organism, is an organism that consists of a single cell, unlike a multicellular organism that consists of multiple cells. Organisms fall into two general categories: prokaryotic organisms and eukaryotic organisms. Most prokaryotes are unicellular and are classified into bacteria and archaea
Holozoa (from Ancient Greek ὅλος (holos) 'whole' and ζῷον (zoion) 'animal') is a clade of organisms that includes animals and their closest single-celled relatives, but excludes fungi and all other organisms. Together they amount to more than 1.5 million species of purely heterotrophic organisms, including around 300 unicellular species
A prokaryote (/ p r oʊ ˈ k ær i oʊ t,-ə t /; less commonly spelled procaryote) [1] is a single-celled organism whose cell lacks a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles. [2] The word prokaryote comes from the Ancient Greek πρό ( pró ), meaning 'before', and κάρυον ( káruon ), meaning 'nut' or 'kernel'. [ 3 ]
Single-celled microorganisms were the first forms of life to develop on Earth, approximately 3.5 billion years ago. [ 30 ] [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Further evolution was slow, [ 33 ] and for about 3 billion years in the Precambrian eon , (much of the history of life on Earth ), all organisms were microorganisms.
For this reason, collective bacteria and other microorganisms in a host are often called "flora". [172] The term "bacteria" was traditionally applied to all microscopic, single-cell prokaryotes.
The various single-cell eukaryotes were originally placed with plants or animals when they became known. In 1818, the German biologist Georg A. Goldfuss coined the word Protozoa to refer to organisms such as ciliates, [57] and this group was expanded until Ernst Haeckel made it a kingdom encompassing all single-celled eukaryotes, the Protista ...
Microbiology (from Ancient Greek μῑκρος (mīkros) 'small' βίος (bíos) 'life' and -λογία 'study of') is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular (single-celled), multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or acellular (lacking cells).