Classification of phylum Protozoa and General characters

Classification of phylum Protozoa and General characters

Aug 09, 2022, 16:45 IST

Classification of phylum Protozoa and General characters

Habit-Habitat

• Protozoan Protists occur in all types of aquatic habitats (marine, freshwater, brackish water etc.)
• They are mostly free living, but many of them are parasites, commensals etc.
• They are solitary, colonial, sedentary, free swimming etc.
• If colonial, the individual cells are alive and independent.
• Some are also found in dry sand.

Organization

• It is acellular and protoplasmic.

Symmetry

• It can be irregular, spherical, radial or bilateral.

Shape & Size

• Shape can be globular, oval, spindle shaped, bell shaped, slipper like or irregular.
• Size may vary between.
• A sporozoan “Porospora gigantea” grows upto 16 mm.

Covering

• The unicells are either naked (viz – Amoeba ) or covered by a non-rigid, non-cellulosic pellicle (viz – Paramecium ) or various types of shells, calcareous / siliceous (viz – Foraminiferans / Radiolarians).
• Endoskeleton is also present in some.

Locomotion

• It takes place through flagella (viz-flagellates), cilia(viz–ciliates) , pseudopodia(viz – sarcodines) , wriggling or none (viz–sporozoans).Resolve all Your Biology Doubts from Physics Wallah.

Nucleus

• Mostly uninucleate, but few of them contain more than one nucleus (viz – Paramecium, Chaos ).

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