Talk:Amoeba

Old text

"Reticulose pseudopods are cytoplasmic strands that branch and anastomose to form a ne

That's easy for you to say!  :-) There's so much jargon here, it's reticulose!  ;-) Just kidding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larry_Sanger (talk • contribs) 01:05, 3 March 2001 (UTC)

I changed 'anastomose' to 'merge', the synonym that everyone uses except when they're talking about Granuloreticulosa. :) I also added a definition for cytoplasm; this is the definition of a reticulose pseudopod. I've been writing these pages for an audience of me-copies, so if you think anything should be defined, just wiki it and if critical make a blank "Fill me in NOW!" page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Grosse (talk • contribs) 01:53, 3 March 2001 (UTC)

Actually, I thought "anastomose" was fine, it just needed to be wikied and explained. Why dumb things down?  :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larry Sanger (talk • contribs) 02:49, 3 March 2001 (UTC)

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This Talk page is completely ridiculous. Everyone, except maybe the authors of Star Trek, know that Amoebae can't talk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Grosse (talk • contribs) 02:37, 10 March 2001 (UTC)

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AGREED!

This page and its kind should really have images at some point. Right now we have four images of amoeboids - two good pictures of unusual forms, a slime mold and xenophyophore, and two less good pictures of more typical forms, a heliozoan and an unidentified radiolarian (but still no classic Amoeba). But these are all different sizes, and as this isn't a genuine group there's no taxobox to work them into. Does anyone have ideas for how images could be worked into this page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Grosse (talk • contribs) 13:44, 19 February 2004 (UTC)

Improvements

-expand apon -possible picture of ameoba with lables — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.240.203 (talk) 03:59, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

heliozoa and apusozoa

Shouldn't Heliozoa and Apusozoa be added to the table? --kupirijo (talk) 09:28, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Article moved from Amebas (pseudopod protists)

This article has been moved from Amebas (pseudopod protists) and extensively rewritten. The changes are as follows.

1. Changed article title, in keeping with Wikipedia MOS and Wikipedia:Article, which specify that article titles should be singular (e.g. Horse, not Horse). The idiosyncratic term "pseudopod protists" is not one that appears in the literature, and the adjectival use of the noun "pseudopod" is awkward. The word "amoeboid" is restored from the original version of the article, which was written under the title "Amoeboids."

2. Removed a long footnote defending the spelling of "ameba." The reference section of an encyclopedia article about a biological subject is not the best place to discuss orthography or defend a particular preference.

3. Reverted spelling to "amoeba," as used in the original article (and inconsistently retained in various places in the edited version). There was no strong reason to change the spelling in the first place, apart from the editor's feeling that "ameba" was becoming more common in US English. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style, "The English Wikipedia prefers no major national variety of the language over any other." However, Wikipedia does value "Consistency within articles," and the change to "ameba" introduces many inconsistencies within the article. All of the important references cited -- David J. Patterson's article on TOL, the U. of Edinburgh's site The Amoebae, Ferry Siemensma's Introduction on Microworld, Bapteste et al, Jan Pawloski and Park et al. -- spell the word "amoeba." New sources I've introduced in this edit do the same, without exception.

Also, the spelling "amoeba" preserves consistency with other Wikipedia articles linked within the text, such as "amoeboid movement" (and the section title of the same name within this article). Anyone who follows the links to Slime Mould, Naegleria fowleri, etc. will find, on arriving, that the spelling used is "amoeba." This introduces unnecessary confusion to an already confusing subject. Rather than change the spelling across Wikipedia, it makes far more sense to return to "amoeba," as used in the oringal version of this article.

In any case, both spellings are well-entrenched, and the contention that the spelling "ameba" "has become more common than the spelling with oe in US English" is very questionable. This claim is supported with a smattering of dictionary entries, a single book on Clinical Parasitology, and a letter to Science, written in 1933 by M. F. Gruyer of Wisconsin. None of these sources state that the spelling "ameba" is more common, so this claim is original research of a haphazard kind. A search in Google Scholar on uses of the the word "amoeba" since 2010 turns up 15,700 examples. A search on uses of "ameba" since 2010 turns up only 3,170 results. A search within the Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology (publishing organ of the International Society of Protistologists) turns up 1,347 for "amoeba," and 365 for "ameba."

For reasons of consistency with source materials, I've adopted the pluralization "amoebae," although "amoebas" is perfectly correct.

4. Restored the claim made in the original article that biologists sometimes use the terms "amoeboid" and "amoeba" interchangeably, because it is true, and is also useful information to a student confused by the various terms in common use. The use of "amoeboid" as a noun is well established in the professional literature, with hundreds of examples going back at least as far as 1947 (as shown by a search on "amoeboids" in Google Scholar), and is consistent with such terms as "hominoid" and "ungulate" (both used nominally).

5. Rewrote the lead for concision and clarity.

6. Edited "shape and structure" for style and clarity. Added detail concerning composition of amoeba tests. Added references, removed unreferenced material.

7. Removed Diversity section, because it was redundant. Taxonomic diversity is addressed in the lead and the Classification section. Moved mention of white blood cells to following section, re. multicellular amoebae

8. Expanded Multicellular amoebae section to include animal cells.

9. Consolidated Classification, Older Classification and Modern Classification for concision and logical flow. Removed the recursive link for Sarcodina. Edited the section for clarity and style.

10. Added a disambiguation hatnote. Deuterostome (talk) 17:20, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I've history-merged the article with the Amebas (pseudopod protists) title because the rewritten article was clearly derived from the old text, and added the old talk page messages and the tag for WikiProject Molecular and Cell Biology from there. I've also cleaned out the deleted edits at the "Amoeba" article because they belonged at Amoeba (genus). Graham87 01:59, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Amoeba which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:44, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Page was moved, discussion now at Talk:Amoeba (genus). ~Amatulić (talk) 21:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of edits

• In the lead, removed unreferenced claim that most uses of "amoeba" refer to amoeboids rather than the genus. A Google Scholar search shows that the scientific literature on amoeba is most frequently about the model organism Amoeba proteus. In any case, the claim seems polemical, designed to assert the priority of "amoeboid" over genus "Amoeba" (which is no longer necessary, since this is now the primary topic for Amoeba). Added a paragraph mentioning several notable species in the lead.

• Removed unreferenced (though probably true) claims regarding actin content of the cytoskeleton, and microfilaments vs. microtubules and intermediate filaments. This is overly detailed and technical for this section of a general-interest article. Best to cover that in a special section further down the page, or insert it into the article on pseudopodia.

• In Shape and Structure section, added details regarding pseudopodia, edited the paragraph on feeding for clarity. Removed unreferenced claim regarding amoebae "breathing" through the cell membrane. Added some details concerning phagocytosis and pinocytosis. Added information concerning contractile vacuoles and osmoregulation. Added an image of a testate amoeba. Deuterostome (talk) 02:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Reverted edits

Reverted series of recent edits, after discussion on User_talk:Zorahia and User_talk:Deuterostome. Revision of the classification section will follow.

History

"Amoebae are no longer classified together in a single group, since any taxon that included all of the traditional amoebae would be a polyphyletic group, containing many species that are not closely related.

One of the first amoeboid groups described where the genera Amoeba and Chaos. Rösel von Rosenhof (1755) studied a large freshwater amoeba, which Linnaeus (1767) put in the genus Volvox, and later in Chaos. Amoeba was described by Bory de Saint-Vincent in 1822. These genera were originally included in groups such Vermes or Infusoria.

The word "sarcode" was created by Dujardin (1835) for the streaming cytoplasm of (amoeboid) cells. He also created the name Rhizopoda, originally used to refer to these organisms, which was replaced by the term Sarcodina of Hertwig & Lesser, in 1874. Later, the term Rhizopoda would be used to a subset of Sarcodina: Bütschli (1880-1889) divided them in Rhizopoda, Heliozoa and Radiolaria. The two later groups would be included by Calkins (1909) in Actinopoda.

The genus has always been, and still remains, the most solyd taxon in amoebae classification. However, for convenience, all these taxonomic groups were in general placed within the class or subphylum Sarcodina, defined as protozoan possessing pseudopodia or locomotive protoplasmic flow, with flagella usually restricted to developmental stages. Sometimes they were united with the flagellates in Sarcomastigophora.

Sarcodina were divided based on morphological characters, that is, the form and structure of their pseudopods. Amoebae with pseudopods supported by regular arrays of microtubules were included in Actinopoda, whereas those with unsupported pseudopods were classified as Rhizopoda. The Rhizopoda were further subdivided into lobose, filose, and reticulose amoebae, according to the morphology of their pseudopods.

The “slime molds” (mainly Myxomycota, Acrasiomycota, Labyrinthulomycota and Plasmodiophoromycota) where considered to be propably related to the protozoan, being included in the Sarcodina, although others included them in the Fungi. This leaded to a duplicated taxonomy (see ambiregnal protists)."

Dismantle of Sarcodina

"When molecular (genetic) analyses confirmed that Sarcodina was a polyphyletic group, the old scheme was abandoned and the amoebae were dispersed among many other groups. The majority of traditional "Sarcodines" are now placed in two eukaryote supergroups (unranked taxa above the Kingdom level): Amoebozoa and Rhizaria. The rest have been distributed among the excavates, opisthokonts, and stramenopiles. Some, like the Centrohelida, have yet to be placed in any supergroup.

The fate of the groups formerly included in Sarcodina is analysed below. The classification of the Rhizopoda is that of Page (1987), based on combined light- and electron-microscopic (ultrastructural) morphological data. The classification of Heliozoa and Radiolaria is based on Pugachev et al. (2011).

Sarcodina

• Rhizopoda
  • Class Heterolobosea: included in Excavata
    • Order Schizopyrenida
    • Order Acrasida
  • Class Lobosea: included in Amoebozoa
    • Subclass Gymnamoebia
      • Order Euamoebida
      • Order Leptomyxida
    • Suborder Rhizoflabellina
    • Suborder Leptoramosina
      • Order Acanthopodida
      • Order Loboreticulatida
    • Subclass Testacealobosia
  • Class Caryoblastea: included in Amoebozoa
    • Order Pelobiontida
  • Class Eumycetozoea: included in Amoebozoa
  • Class Plasmodiophorea: included in Rhizaria
  • Class Filosea
    • Subclass Aconchulinia
      • Order Cristidiscoidida
        • Family Nucleariidae: included in Nucleariida (Opisthokonta)
        • Family Pompholyxophrydae: included in Nucleariida (Opisthokonta); formerly included in Heliozoa also
      • Order Cristivesiculatida: included in Rhizaria
        • Family Vampyrellidae
        • Family Arachnulidae
    • Subclass Testaceafilosia: included in Rhizaria
  • Class Granuloreticulosea: dissolved
    • Order Athalamida
    • Order Promycetozoida
    • Order Monothalamida
    • Order Foraminiferida: included in Rhizaria
  • Class Xenophyophorea: included in Rhizaria
• Actinopoda
  • Heliozoa: dissolved
    • Desmothoracida, Heliomonadida/Dimorphida and Gymnosphaerida: included in Cercozoa (Rhizaria)
    • Actinophryida and Pedinellida: included in Stramenopiles
    • Taxopodida/Sticholonche: included in Radiolaria (Rhizaria)
    • Centrohelida: included in Hacrobia
    • Rotosphaerida: included in Nucleariida (Opisthokonta)
  • Radiolaria: modified
    • Phaeodarea: included in Cercozoa (Rhizaria)
    • Acantharea: maintained in Radiolaria (Rhizaria)
    • Polycystinea: maintained in Radiolaria (Rhizaria)

The Labyrinthulea, sometimes included in Sarcodina, but not in the classification of these authors, are presently included in Stramenopiles.

In addition to the amoeboid forms, Amoebozoa also comprise the uniciliate flagellate Phalansterium, the multiciliated flagellate species Multicilia, and the free-living amoeboflagellate Breviata. Rhizaria also includes a large diversity of free-living flagellates (e.g., Cercomonas), amoebo-flagellates (e.g., chlorarachniophytes, before placed in Xanthomonadina, or in Chromista), and parasitic protists (e.g., Ascetosporea)."

Modern classification

"Whereas older classifications were based mainly on morphology, modern schemes are based upon cladistics, on molecular and morphological data. Phylogenetic analyses place amoeboid genera into the following groups:"

References

Edit summary

• Expanded lead to include mention of changes to classification, and the abandonment of Sarcodina.
• Moved image of Foraminaferan to section on "Shape etc.," replacing it with a more familiar-looking naked Amoebozoan
• Added image of neutrophil, a diagram showing stages of amoeba phagocytosis, and a diagram of a generic freshwater amoeba.
• Removed image of testate amoeba Difflugia (layout was too cluttered)
• Made numerous small edits for style and clarity, and repaired links.
• Rewrote and renamed Classification section, adding History (as discussed with Zorahia).
• Made small edits to wikitable of amoeboid taxa. Added slime molds, changed "Grouping" to "Supergroups" and changed "Genera" to "Major groups and Genera" (since that column contains many suprageneric taxa)
• I tried to think of a way to incorporate the list of taxa proposed by Zorahia (see "Dismantle of Sarcodina" above) but every solution I considered introduced complexities that do not belong in a Wikipedia article. The problem is that the history of many of the groups in that list is quite tangled, and it is really not practical to take a snapshot of a single "older" classification in order to show the composition of Sarcodina. To give one example, Caryoblastea Margulis & Schwartz, 1982 existed for a very brief time, as a home for the Pelobiontida (Pelomyxa, in particular), to reflect the hypothesis that those organisms were early-branching primitive eukaryotes. However, for decades before that, Pelomyxa was generally considered a lobosean Rhizopod, similar to Chaos (and indeed, it has ended up back in that spot, under Amoebozoa). A general article on amoebae is not the place to record all these shifts in the winds. It is better to simply show where the taxa ended up by placing them in the existing wikitable, and update the table as phylogeny changes.

Much work remains to be done, obviously. The section on morphology and nutrition needs to be expanded. In particular, the account of amoeboid movement should be improved (perhaps it can be given its own section). A good chart of various types of pseudopodia (like the one in the Tree of Life Amoebae article) would be particularly welcome . The wikitable of taxa could use an update, to harmonize with Adl et al, 2012 and other recent work (chromalveolata is probably polyphyletic, for instance). Deuterostome (talk) 16:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Keep working guys

I came here with my ten-year-old son wondering how big an amoeba is. I now know this:

"The shells of testate amoebae may be composed of various substances, including calcium, silica, chitin, or agglutinations of found materials like small grains of sand and the frustules of diatoms."

...but I don't know how big they are. This isn't a biology textbook; it's an encyclopedia. --Doradus (talk) 13:07, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, Doradus. I've added a section on size. The subject is complicated by the fact that amoebae range from bacteria-sized picoeukaryotes to dinner-plate sized xenophyophores, so I added a table of selected species and cell types. Deuterostome (talk) 13:12, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Sorry for the snarky tone of my request. I appreciate how hard it is to make something simple and understandable. --Doradus (talk) 12:45, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Really confusing page name

What is the reason for this page name? All references to amoebae most of which ought to go to Amoeba (genus) link to this page that supposedly only describes the shape. For instance the entry for amoebiasis refers to an amoeba that ought to go to amoeba genus page but comes here. It was changed from much more suitable amoeboid (self-explanatory) three years ago to the creature amoeba to create this confusing mess. It was changed under the justification that the word was an adjective not a noun yet in the lead its stated that the two terms are used interchangeably. Does anybody else have any thoughts on this. --Iztwoz (talk) 11:35, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

The change (a formal move, requested and discussed on Talk:Amoeba_(genus)) had nothing to do with "adjectives" and "nouns." The reason for the change was that most of the organisms commmonly referred to as "amoebae" are not found within the genus Amoeba. For instance, to use your example, amoebiasis is not caused by any amoeba in genus Amoeba. It is caused by various species of Entamoeba, which is not only a different genus but falls in entirely different class of organisms (Archamoeba, rather than Tubulinea). The genus Amoeba is a very small group, and currently has only a few species (the only well-known member is Amoeba proteus). At the time of the page move, I went through the hundreds of incoming links in Wikipedia, and found that only a handful were actually intended for the genus itself. Looking over the links today, I see that this is still the case. Deuterostome  (Talk) 12:33, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Amoeba is derived from Greek word

Amoeba is derived from Greek word meaning change.

https://books.google.com/books?id=vNTQAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=amoeba+oxford&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRq7WRrs7gAhUJ5awKHSLeBtcQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=amoeba&f=false

page 12

Please provide feedback if this can be added Sangitha rani111 (talk) 03:10, 22 February 2019 (UTC)Sangitha rani111

Well, any dictionary would be a reliable source for the origin of any word in the English language. Many words in English derive from Latin, Greek, and other languages. I honestly don't see the need to include this. We have Wiktionary for anyone who wants to look up etymology: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amoeba ~Anachronist (talk) 03:25, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

In any case, it's already in the article (second paragraph of the section "Amoebae as organisms"). Deuterostome (Talk) 23:28, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Sangitha rani111 (talk) 04:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC)Sangitha rani111

"ameba"??

Who spells amoeba 'ameba'?? Other than, say, kids under the age of 9 that haven't learnt how to spell it yet? I have NEVER seen it spelled like this. I almost wonder if that was put in the lede by a non-American editor who assumed that every instance of 'oe' is reduced to just 'e' in America. This is not always the case...

Firejuggler86 (talk) 02:30, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It's an oddity to me, but it's apparently spelled that way even by some authors of scholarly works on biology, as exemplified by this Google Books search. I checked a number of these to make sure it wasn't a one-time typographical error in each case, and it wasn't a one-off in any of them. Largoplazo (talk) 03:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's a valid spelling, but far less common than "amoeba," and should probably be given less emphasis in the lede. Back in 2014, an editor with a preference for "ameba" inserted the alternate spelling in this way. I've always found it a bit awkward. Deuterostome (Talk) 01:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I think there was some call to change the spelling decades ago, but it never really caught on. "Archeology" is similarly attested but less common. I've seen people claim that "archeology" is the American spelling, but the classes I took at East Carolina University (definitely an American school) all used the spelling "archaeology".--Khajidha (talk) 15:30, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Amoeba

What is amoeba? 196.191.248.173 (talk) 16:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Amoeboid Fungus?

The article states that, "Amoeboid cells occur not only among the protozoa, but also in fungi, algae, and animals." According to the quote's sources, fission yeast can sort of form pseudopodia if their cell wall breaks, but as far as I can tell there are no naturally occurring amoeboid fungus.

I'm not an expert in the slightest, but the Wikipedia article for fungus states that "A characteristic that places fungi in a different kingdom from plants, bacteria, and some protists is chitin in their cell walls." If a chitin cell wall makes amoeboid movement impossible, and no fungal cells naturally form pseudopodia, then surely it's wrong to say that amoeboid cells occur in fungi. 6Kjo6 (talk) 08:08, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

This may stem from the assignation of some slime molds to the Fungi in the past. Some slime molds have an amoeboid phase and thus the possible confusion. I would suggest removal of the relevant text with a good explanatory edit summary.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   10:02, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Some true fungi do produce amoeboid zoospores (and all fungal zoospores lack a cell wall). See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S175450480800041X?casa_token=upEg8QZilcMAAAAA:fO2H_dl_hRp9V8zbsLeNDN2A4z-mmWtfDS4c5MtUJDak6YsuL2kz5BuGOhbyngCRHzitOulj6Q Deuterostome (Talk) 23:42, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Invertebrate Zoology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2024 and 29 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kelseywigger (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Ibrip99 (talk) 15:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)