eukaryoten.

1961 Webster's 3rd New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang.

1963 Cold Spring Harbor Symp. Quantitative Biol. 28 1/1 The distinction of eukaryotes which possess a characteristic chromosome nucleus and prokaryotes where the nuclear equivalent does not show any chromosome-like structures, is not bounded by a nuclear envelope, and does not divide by mitosis.

1967 J. T. O. Kirk & R. A. E. Tilney-Bassett Plastids xi. 364 This theory..makes it unnecessary to explain the separate evolution of photosynthetic ability in the prokaryotes (organisms such as bacteria and blue-green algae, with no separate membrane-bounded nucleus, or other organelles) and the eukaryotes (higher organisms, including algae and higher plants, with chromosomes inside a membrane-bounded nucleus, and other membrane-bounded organelles).

1969 New Scientist 14 Aug. 327/2 The oldest rocks in which eucaryotic fossils are known are about 1.2 to 1.4 aeons old, although eucaryotes may have made their debut before this.

1977 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) July 28/3 The paleontological record suggests that prokaryotes existed on the earth for a billion or more years before the more complex eukaryotes arrived on the scene.

1983 Nature 21 July 211/1 Many sexually reproducing species of lower eukaryotes are not differentiated into males and females.

1984 J. W. Kimball Cell Biol. (ed. 3) iii. 72/1 (caption) Electron micrograph..of a blue-green alga. Although internal membranes are found in this prokaryote, these are not organized into the membrane-bounded organelles characteristic of eukaryotes.