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Systematists today do not treat Protista as a formal taxon, but the term "protist" is still commonly used for convenience in two ways. [22] The most popular contemporary definition is a phylogenetic one, that identifies a paraphyletic group: [23] a protist is any eukaryote that is not an animal, (land) plant, or (true) fungus; this definition [24] excludes many unicellular groups, like the ...
In 1866, the 'father of protistology', German scientist Ernst Haeckel, addressed the problem of classifying all these organisms as a mixture of animal and vegetable characters, and proposed Protistenreich [193] (Kingdom Protista) as the third kingdom of life, comprising primitive forms that were "neither animals nor plants".
Combined with the five-kingdom model, this created a six-kingdom model, where the kingdom Monera is replaced by the kingdoms Bacteria and Archaea. [16] This six-kingdom model is commonly used in recent US high school biology textbooks, but has received criticism for compromising the current scientific consensus. [ 13 ]
A variety of multi-kingdom systems were proposed, and the Kingdoms Protista and Protoctista became established in biology texts and curricula. [ 22 ] [ 23 ] [ 24 ] By 1954, Protozoa were classified as "unicellular animals", as distinct from the "Protophyta", single-celled photosynthetic algae, which were considered primitive plants. [ 25 ]
The earliest evidence for life on Earth includes: 3.8 billion-year-old biogenic hematite in a banded iron formation of the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in Canada; [30] graphite in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks in western Greenland; [31] and microbial mat fossils in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone in Western Australia.
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.
In 1818, the German biologist Georg A. Goldfuss coined the word Protozoa to refer to organisms such as ciliates, [56] and this group was expanded until Ernst Haeckel made it a kingdom encompassing all single-celled eukaryotes, the Protista, in 1866. [57] [58] [59] The eukaryotes thus came to be seen as four kingdoms: Kingdom Protista; Kingdom ...
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]