Overview
Choanozoa (: (choanos) = "funnel" + ???? (zoon) = "animal") is the name of a phylum of protists that belongs to the line of opisthokonts.
Most appear closer to the animals than to the fungi, and they are of great interest to biologists studying animal origins. The chytrids have also been included among the Protista, but are now more often placed among the Fungi.
It has been suggested that the nucleariids are in fact a sister group to the fungi, and that the rest of the classes form a monophyletic or paraphyletic sister group to the animals.
The great kingdoms and their stem groups.[1]
Taxonomy
The Phylum Choanozoa is further organized into finer groupings including:
- Class (4): Acanthoecidae · Choanoflagellatea · Cristidiscoidea · Mesomycetozoea
- Species: ZipcodeZoo has pages for 104 species and subspecies in the Phylum Choanozoa.
Classes
Acanthoecidae
Choanoflagellatea
Cristidiscoidea
Mesomycetozoea
The Mesomycetozoea or DRIP are a small group of protists, mostly parasites of fish and other animals. One species, Rhinosporidium seeberi, infects birds and mammals, including humans. They are not particularly distinctive morphologically, appearing in host tissues as enlarged spheres or ovals containing spores, and most were originally classified in various groups of fungi, protozoa, and algae. However, they form a coherent group on molecular trees, closely related to both animals and fungi and so of interest to biologists studying their origins. [more]
At least 84 species and subspecies belong to the Class Mesomycetozoea.
More info about the Class Mesomycetozoea may be found here.
References
- Eichinger, L.; Pachebat, J.A.; Glöckner, G.; Rajandream, M.A.; Sucgang, R.; Berriman, M.; Song, J.; Olsen, R.; Szafranski, K.; Xu, Q.; Others, (2005). "The genome of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum". Nature 435 (7038): 43-57. doi:
- Steenkamp, E.T.; Wright, J.; Baldauf, S.L. (2006). "The Protistan Origins of Animals and Fungi". Molecular Biology and Evolution 23 (1): 93-106. doi:
Sources
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