choanoflagellate

choanoflagellate

English

Etymology

From choano- +‎ flagellate.

Noun

choanoflagellate (plural choanoflagellates)

1. (biology) Any of a group of flagellate protozoa, of the class Choanoflagellatea, thought to be the closest unicellular ancestors of animals.
   • 2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, 2013 edition, Granta Books, page 30:

     Choanoflagellates are plankton: tiny protozoans that feed on even tinier bacteria.

   • 2017, Douglas Fox, ‘Aliens in our midst’, Aeon, 1 August:

     Detailed studies showed that the sponge and the cells of a protist called a choanoflagellate used a different set of genes and proteins to build similar-looking structures.

Synonyms

• craspedophyte

Translations

any of a group of flagellate protozoa

Chinese: Mandarin: 領鞭毛蟲／领鞭毛虫 (lǐngbiānmáochóng) Finnish: kaulussiimaeliö Portuguese: coanoflagelado m Spanish: coanoflagelado m

Further reading

• choanoflagellate on Wikipedia.Wikipedia