? Amoeba
Amoeba proteus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Protista Phylum: Amoebozoa Family: Amoebidae Genus: Amoeba Bery de St. Vincent 1822

Amoeba (also spelled ameba) is a genus of protozoa that moves by means of temporary projections called pseudopods, and is well-known as a representative unicellular organism. The word amoeba is variously used to refer to it and its close relatives, now grouped as the Amoebozoa, or to all protozoa that move using pseudopods, otherwise termed amoeboids. See those pages for further information. Chaos diffluens, an amoeba. ... Scientific classification or biological classification is how biologists group and categorize extinct and living species of organisms. ... Typical phyla Rhodophyta (red algae) Chromista Heterokontophyta (heterokonts) Haptophyta Cryptophyta (cryptomonads) Alveolates Dinoflagellata Apicomplexa Ciliophora (ciliates) Excavates Euglenozoa Percolozoa Metamonada Rhizaria Radiolaria Foraminifera Cercozoa Amoebozoa Choanozoa Many others; classification varies Protists are a heterogeneous group of living things, comprising those eukaryotes that are neither animals, plants, nor fungi. ... Subgroups Mycetozoa(slime moulds) Archamoebae    Pelobiontida    Entamoebida Gymnamoebia Various others The Amoebozoa are a major group of amoeboid protozoa, including the majority that move by means of internal cytoplasmic flow. ... Genera Amoeba Chaos Deuteramoeba Hydramoeba Metachaos Parachaos Polychaos Trichamoeba The Amoebidae are a family of amoebozoa, including naked amoebae that produce multiple pseudopodia of indeterminate length. ... Protozoa (in Greek protos = first and zoon = animal) are single-celled eukaryotes (organisms with nuclei) that show some characteristics usually associated with animals, most notably mobility and heterotrophy. ... Pseudopods or pseudopodia (false feet) are temporary projections of eukaryotic cells. ... Subgroups Mycetozoa(slime moulds) Archamoebae    Pelobiontida    Entamoebida Gymnamoebia Various others The Amoebozoa are a major group of amoeboid protozoa, including the majority that move by means of internal cytoplasmic flow. ... Amoeba (Chaos diffluens) Foraminiferan shells Heliozoan (Actinophrys sol) Amoeboids are cells that move or feed by means of temporary projections, called pseudopods (false feet). ...

Amoeba itself is found in freshwater, typically on decaying vegetation from streams, but is not especially common in nature. However, because of the ease with which they may be obtained and kept in the lab, they are common objects of study, both as representative protozoa and to demonstrate cell structure and function. The cells have several lobose pseudopods, with one large tubular pseudopod at the anterior and several secondary ones branching to the sides. The most famous species, A. proteus, is 700-800 μm in length, but many others are much smaller. Each has a single nucleus, and a simple contractile vacuole which maintains its osmotic pressure, as its most recognizable features. In cell biology, the nucleus (from Latin nucleus or nuculeus, kernel) is found in all eukaryotic cells and contains most of the cells genetic material. ... Vacuoles are large membrane-bound compartments within some eukaryotic cells where they serve a variety of different functions: capturing food materials or unwanted structural debris surrounding the cell, sequestering materials that might be toxic to the cell, maintaining fluid balance (called turgor) within the cell, exporting unwanted substances from the... Osmosis is the diffusion of a solvent through a semipermeable membrane from a region of low solute concentration to a region of high solute concentration. ...

Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule, after a Greek god who could change his shape. The name "amibe" was given to it by Bery St. Vincent, from the Greek amoibe, meaning change. Proteus as seen by Andrea Alciato In Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the Old Man of the Sea, whose name suggests the first, as protogonos is the firstborn. No mention is made of his parents, until for later mythographers he... Animalcule is an older term for a microscopic animal or protozoan. ...

A good method of collecting amoeba is to lower a jar upside down until it is just above the sediment surface. Then slowly let air escape so the top layer will be sucked into the jar. Try not to allow deeper sediment get sucked in. You can slowly move the jar when tilting it so you collect from a larger area. If no amoeba are found, one can try introducing some rice grains into the jar and waiting for them to start to rot. The bacteria eating the rice will be eaten by the amoeba, thus increasing the population and making them easier to find.

Amoeba in popular culture

• The North American writer Tom Robbins states, in the preface to his book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, that amoebas are cool because they reproduce by binary fission, so the first amoeba is still alive to this day.
• In the 1984 computer game Boulder Dash, Rockford, the main character, is chased all the time by a constantly-growing amoeba.
• In certain places of Brazil, the term amoeba (in its Portuguese form: ameba) is used as a derogatory slang for "slow, obtuse person".
• The Californian punk band The Adolescents wrote a song called Amoeba

Image:Robbins. ... A preface (Med. ... Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a successful 1976 novel by Tom Robbins made into a less-successful 1993 movie by Gus Van Sant. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Reproduction is the creation of one thing as a copy of, product of, or replacement for a similar thing, e. ... Binary fission Binary fission is the form of asexual reproduction used by most prokaryotes to reproduce. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Boulder Dash, aka Rockford, originally released in 1984, is a classic series of computer games for the Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Atari 400/800 home computers, and later ported to the NES, Acorn Electron, PC, Amstrad CPC, and many other platforms. ... A word or phrase is pejorative or derogatory (sometimes misspelled perjorative) if it expresses contempt or disapproval; dyslogistic (noun: dyslogism) is used synonymously (antonyms: meliorative, eulogistic, noun eulogism). ... Slang is the non-standard or non-dialectal use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... This article is about the punk group The Adolescents. ...

External links

• Wikibooks: compare size of cells
• Amoeba info