Amoebozoa | |
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Chaos carolinensis | |
Scientific classification | |
Unrecognized taxon (fix): | Amoebozoa |
Subphyla, infraphyla and classes | |
Synonyms | |
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The Amoebozoa are a eukaryote phylum of Amoeba-like protozoa. They are a sister clade to the fungi and the animals. Most move by internal cytoplasmic flow. Their finger-like pseudopodia are characteristic.
They are a major group with about 2,400 described species of amoeboid protists. In most classification schemes, Amoebozoa is ranked as a phylum in either the kingdom Protista or the kingdom Protozoa. In the classification of the International Society of Protistologists, it is kept as an unranked "supergroup" in the Eukaryota.
Sequence analysis shows Amoebozoa is a monophyletic clade. Most phylogenetic trees identify it as the sister group to Opisthokonta. That is another major clade which contains both fungi and animals as well as some 300 species of unicellular protists. Amoebozoa and Opisthokonta are sometimes grouped together in a high-level taxon, called Unikonta, Amorphea, or Opimoda.