The Protist Thread

[Psi Wavefunction]

2. Foraminifera are a favorite! My dad wrote many scientific papers on their classification. Here are some of the illustrations he did (unfortunately a photo of an old, yellowed copy, but it's all I have...)

Forams are pretty awesome. Some of them have symbiotic photosynthetic dinoflagellates (single-celled brown-algae relatives) living inside them, and their shells have thin places acting as 'windows' for those little dinos... that's just so cute and adorable!

And then there's some massive foram relatives that grow up to 20-30cm in diameter, consisting of a SINGLE multinucleate cell! Meet Xenophyophora:

[Psi Wavefunction]

*sigh*

I love science... It's dirty without meaning to be.... well, usually without meaning to be.

<_< There's also a group of organisms called Fornicata. I think that one, for once, was unintentional... but they do seem to have a lot of fun trying to sneak in funky names. The guy who made the diagram in the OP wanted to name the clade containing Cryptomonads and Haptophytes -- Crhaptophytes. It got rejected, for some odd reason... :hum: Personally, I'll insist on calling them just that, if I ever need to! :twisted:

[Psi Wavefunction]

Wait, did you say Protist? Whoops, wrong thread. Sorry, carry on.

That mech looks more metazoan to me...

[Psi Wavefunction]

Euglenozoa:

http://tolweb.org/Euglenozoa/2405

Note: Posted in the RIGHT thread this time!

[Psi Wavefunction]

A walking ciliate!



Those 'legs' are clumps of cilia they use for walking on stuff... remember, they're all unicellular! And utterly adorable, IMO...

[Horwood Beer-Master]

...Those 'legs' are clumps of cilia they use for walking on stuff... remember, they're all unicellular! And utterly adorable, IMO... ...

But do they make good pets?

[Horwood Beer-Master]