Protozoa

Protozoa (sing.: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a polyphyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic debris. Historically, protozoans were regarded as "one-celled animals".

When first introduced by Georg Goldfuss, in 1818, the taxon Protozoa was erected as a class within the Animalia, with the word 'protozoa' meaning "first animals", because they often possess animal-like behaviours, such as motility and predation, and lack a cell wall, as found in plants and many algae.

This classification remained widespread in the 19th and early 20th century, and even became elevated to a variety of higher ranks, including phylum, subkingdom, kingdom, and then sometimes included within the paraphyletic Protoctista or Protista.

By the 1970s, it became usual to require that all taxa be monophyletic (all members being derived from one common ancestor that is itself regarded as belonging in the taxon), and holophyletic (containing all of the known descendants of that common ancestor). The taxon 'Protozoa' fails to meet these standards, so grouping protozoa with animals, and treating them as closely related, became no longer justifiable.

The term continues to be used in a loose way to describe single-celled protists (that is, eukaryotes that are not animals, plants, or fungi) that feed by heterotrophy. Traditional textbook examples of protozoa are Amoeba, Paramecium, Euglena and Trypanosoma.

History of classification

The word "protozoa" (singular protozoon) was coined in 1818 by zoologist Georg August Goldfuss (=Goldfuß), as the Greek-derived calque of the German Urthiere, meaning "primitive, or original animals" (ur- 'proto-' + Thier 'animal'). Goldfuss created Protozoa as a class containing what he believed to be the simplest animals.