Protista
/prəʊˈtɪstə
/plural noun Biology
A kingdom or large grouping that comprises mostly single-celled organisms such as the protozoa, simple algae and fungi, slime moulds, and (formerly) the bacteria. They are now divided among up to thirty phyla, and some have both plant and animal characteristics.This Kingdom does not contain the prokaryotes (Kingdom Monera, includes bacteria, blue-green algae) or the protists (Kingdom Protista, includes unicellular eukaryotic organisms)....
- The scheme most often used currently divides all living organisms into five kingdoms: Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.
- Intermittently, the Porifera were classified to the Protista / Protozoa.
Derivatives
protist
- Like plants and many protists, brown algae undergo a complex life cycle involving alternation of generations.
- Dinoflagellates are unicellular protists which exhibit a great diversity of form.
- Other unicellular organisms found include bacteria, cyanobacteria, dinoflagellates, and other protists.
protistan
- Combined with its large size, the morphological and ontogenetic complexity of this fossil organism places it clearly within the protistan eukaryotes.
- Comparable studies, with varying results, were conducted on land vertebrates, land plants, early protistans, insects, and life as a whole.
- On present evidence, Metazoa evolved from a protistan that was a choano-flagellate-like form.
protistology
- Our allegiances are divided between protozoology, phycology, parasitology, mycology, protistology, plant pathology and myriad other professional societies and their journals.
- During his tenure at Western, he taught courses in principles of biology, protistology, general botany, plant morphology, and freshwater algae.
- Phylogeny of naked amoebae remains one of the most knotty questions in protistology.
Origin
Modern Latin (plural), from Greek prōtista, neuter plural of prōtistos 'very first', superlative of prōtos 'first'.