The paracercomonads are a group of
cercozoan
Cercozoa (now synonymised with Filosa) is a phylum of diverse single-celled eukaryotes. They lack shared morphological characteristics at the microscopic level, and are instead united by molecular phylogenies of rRNA and actin or polyubiquitin. ...
protists
A protist ( ) or protoctist is any Eukaryote, eukaryotic organism that is not an animal, Embryophyte, land plant, or fungus. Protists do not form a Clade, natural group, or clade, but are a Paraphyly, paraphyletic grouping of all descendants o ...
.
Taxonomically, they comprise the family Paracercomonadidae, order Paracercomonadida and subclass Paracercomonada. Due to their morphological similarities to the
cercomonads, members of this family were grouped with ''
Cercomonas
Cercomonads are small amoeboflagellates, widespread in aqueous habitats and common in soils.
Characteristics
The cells are generally around 10 μm in length, without any shell or covering. They produce filose pseudopods to capture bacteria, b ...
'' and similar taxa from the beginning. However, their similarities are due to
convergent evolution
Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last comm ...
.
Classification
There are currently 5 genera of paracercomonads:
*''
Brevimastigomonas''
*''
Metabolomonas''
*''
Nucleocercomonas''
*''
Paracercomonas''
*''
Phytocercomonas''
References
Rhizaria families
{{Cercozoa-stub