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Protozoan: Definition, Features and Its Classification

As a group the protozoa are most primitive and are inhabiting the earth for about a billion and half years. Fossil forms of radiolaria and foraminiferans, half a billion years old, have been recorded.                                           Origin : Pre-Cambrian Taxonomic Retrospect : Leeuwenhock (1676) first gave prelimi­nary accounts of some protozoan forms after the discovery of microscope. Goldfuss (1818) coined the term Protozoa but he included many non-protozoan forms under protozoa. Von Siebold (1845) recognised the unicellu­lar nature of the protozoa and established the term Protozoa in its true sense. The zo­ologists like Doflein (1901), Colkins (1901, 33), Kudo (1931, 77), Hyman (1940), Honigberg (1964), Grell (1973), Corliss (1967, 84), Cavalier-Smith (2002) and Brusca and Brusca (2003) have classified the protozoa in different angles and have discussed on dif­ferent aspects. Definition : Unicellular or acellular, eukaryotic and com­monly motile heterotrophic organisms are