Abstrakt
Members of the Archamoebae comprise free-living and endobiotic amoeboid flagellates, amoeboflagellates, and amoebae, with distinctive hyaline cytoplasm and bulging pseudopodia. They live in anoxic or microoxic habitats and are anaerobes, lacking typical mitochondria, as well as Golgi stacks, plastids, and normal peroxisomal microbodies.
They have a distinctive flagellar apparatus present in all flagellated members of the group. Life cycles of individual species can include flagellates, amoebae of various sizes, and cysts.
In recent years, the group has been divided into five separate families, Mastigamoebidae, Entamoebidae, Pelomyxidae, Tricholimacidae, and Rhizomastixidae, whose interrelationships have not been completely resolved. Here, we clarify the com- position of these groups and the circumscription of genera in the Archamoebae.