Protist instance of taxon
Description
Besides their relatively simple levels of organization, protists do not necessarily have much in common. When used, the term "protists" is now considered to mean a paraphyletic assemblage of similar-appearing but diverse taxa (biological groups); these taxa do not have an exclusive common ancestor beyond being composed of eukaryotes, and have different life cycles, trophic levels, modes of locomotion, and cellular structures.Examples of protists include:
Amoebas (including nucleariids and Foraminifera);
Choanoflagellates; ciliates;
Diatoms;
Dinoflagellates;
Giardia;
Oomycetes (including Phytophthora, the cause of the Great Famine of Ireland); and
Plasmodium (which causes malaria);
slime molds.These examples are unicellular, although oomycetes can join to form filaments, and slime molds can aggregate into a tissue-like mass.
In cladistic systems (classifications based on common ancestry), there are no equivalents to the taxa Protista or Protoctista, as both terms refer to a paraphyletic group that spans the entire eukaryotic branch of the tree of life. In cladistic classification, the contents of Protista are mostly distributed among various supergroups: examples include the
type of example of manifestation of representation of