Protozoa room the animal-like protists. These unicellular eukaryotes absence cell walls. They are heterotrophic and also feed on various other microorganisms or on organic particles. Protozoa ingest their food in 2 ways. The an initial is a procedure called phagocytosis, in which a flexible part of the cell membrane surrounding a food particle and also engulfs it, happen it right into the cell in a vacuole. Phagocytosis is offered to ingest other unicellular organisms or large particles. Smaller sized particles are ingested by pinocytosis. In this process, the bit is sucked into an invagination in the cabinet membrane, which climate folds in ~ above itself and also pinches turn off from the cell membrane to come to be a smaller vacuole.

Protozoa are highly motile. The method by which lock move have the right to be used to group them into three types: kinetoplastids, ciliates, and also sarcodina.

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Kinetoblastids

The kinetoplastids move by method of one or much more eukaryotic flagella. Eukaryotes and also prokaryotes both have actually structures referred to as flagella, but they room structurallyand evolutionarilydistinct.Many kinetoplastids role parasitically inanimals, despite some space free-living.

A typical Kinetoplastid: Trypanosoma gambiense

Trypanosoma gambiense is a kinetoplastid the is parasitic in humans, and also causes African sleeping sickness.

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Figure%: Trypanosoma gambienseThe parasite is a thin, crescent-shaped organism v a solitary long flagellum the folds throughout its body and an undulating membrane. It stays in the bloodstream the its host, later on invading the main nervous system. Because it is blood-borne, Trypanosoma gambiense is easily transmitted through the blood-sucking tsetse fly. The helminth are attracted up through the blood right into the intestines that the fly. Over there they experience a physiological change that enables them to invade the fly"s salient glands. ~ this happens, every animal the paris bites receives an injection of the parasite.

Ciliates

Ciliates relocate by method of rows of cilia. This hair-like frameworks are connected at your bases to a mechanism of contractile fibers similar to a muscular device in greater animals. This permits the cilia to beat in a given pattern, one of two people to relocate the cabinet or to to wash food particles toward a primitive mouth.

A usual Ciliate: The Paramecium

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Figure%: structure of the Paramecium

The framework of the paramecium is presented in the figure above. The cabinet membrane is covered with rows of cilia that beat rhythmically to wash food towards the oral groove wherein it will be packaged in distinct food vacuoles for digestion. Like all ciliates, and unlike any kind of other group of protozoa, the paramecium has actually two species of nuclei. The macronucleus maintains cell growth and role by creating messenger RNA and can have actually hundreds of copies of the cell"s DNA. The micronucleus is connected in inheritance of genetic material throughout sexual reproduction and also is just diploid.

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Sexual reproduction takes ar through a procedure called conjugation. When people of opposite mating varieties meet, the adhere to each various other at the dental groove. The micronuclei then dividemeiotically, producing four haploid nuclei each. All yet one cell core from each paramecium disintegrate. The macronucleus also disintegrates, leaving each cell with one haploid micronucleus. These remaining nuclei then division mitotically and the two cells swapcopies of your nuclei. The cells separate and the haploid nuclei fuse, leaving every cell v a brand-new diploid micronucleus. To kind a new macronucleus, the micronucleus divides numerous times and also the result nuclei develop into a macronucleus.

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Figure%: Paramecium Conjugation

Sarcodina

Sarcodina have no flagella or cilia. They relocate by method of ameboidmotion. Helped by filaments of a structure protein referred to as actin, the cytoplasm of these protozoa can circulation beneath the cell membrane into new branches dubbed pseudopods, causing the cell to relocate in a given direction. Numerous sarcodina room parasites that the intestinal track and oral cavity that humans and also other vertebrates. We are most familiar with the formless genus Ameba seen in , but many sarcodina secrete tough silica- or calcium carbonate-based shells, sometimes in elaborate, species-specific shapes. Shells made of calcium carbonate have been significant in forming countless of the world"s limestone deposits.