Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Euglena is a genus of single cell flagellate eukaryotes. It is the best known and most widely studied member of the class Euglenoidea, a diverse group containing some 54 genera and at least 200 species. [1] [2] Species of Euglena are found in fresh water and salt water.
Euglena gracilis is a freshwater species of single-celled alga in the genus Euglena. It has secondary chloroplasts, and is a mixotroph able to feed by photosynthesis or phagocytosis. It has a highly flexible cell surface, allowing it to change shape from a thin cell up to 100 μm long to a sphere of approximately 20 μm.
Peranema. Peranema's basic anatomy is that of a typical euglenid.The cell is spindle or cigar-shaped, somewhat pointed at the anterior end. It has a pellicle with parallel finely-ridged proteinaceous strips underlain by microtubules arranged in a helical fashion around the body.
Flagella are used in prokaryotes (archaea and bacteria) as well as protists. In addition, both flagella and cilia are widely used in eukaryotic cells (plant and animal) apart from protists. The regular beat patterns of eukaryotic cilia and flagella generates motion on a cellular level.
Later, various biologists described additional characteristics for Euglena and established different classification systems for euglenids based on nutrition modes, the presence and number of flagella, and the degree of metaboly.
Euglenales consists mostly of freshwater organisms, in contrast to its sister Eutreptiales which is generally marine. Cells have two flagella, but only one is emergent; the other is very short and does not emerge from the cell, so cells appear to have only one flagellum. [3]
Life originated as marine single-celled prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) and later evolved into more complex eukaryotes. Eukaryotes are the more developed life forms known as plants, animals, fungi and protists. Protists are the eukaryotes that cannot be classified as plants, fungi or animals. They are mostly single-celled and microscopic.
The family Euglenaceae is also known by the name Euglenidae. The origin of this dual naming system is because of the history of protists. Euglenids have been treated as both algae and protozoans, which are governed by separate nomenclature codes. [2]