| Filozoa Temporal range: 760–0 Ma | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Orange elephant ear sponge,Agelas clathrodes, in foreground. Two corals in the background: asea fan,Iciligorgia schrammi, and a sea rod,Plexaurella nutans. | |
Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Clade: | Amorphea |
| Clade: | Obazoa |
| Clade: | Opisthokonta |
| Clade: | Holozoa |
| Clade: | Filozoa Shalchian-Tabriziet al., 2008 |
| Subgroups | |
TheFilozoa are amonophyletic grouping within theOpisthokonta. They includeanimals and their nearestunicellular relatives (organisms which are more closely related to animals than tofungi orMesomycetozoa).[1]
Three groups are currently included within theclade Filozoa:
The name Filozoa originates from theLatin wordfilum meaning "thread" and theGreek wordzōion meaning "animal".
Below is aphylogenetic tree of Filozoa and the groups most closely related to the Filozoa :[2][3][4][5]
| Opisthokonta | |
| 1300 mya |
The ancestralopisthokont cell is assumed to have possessed slender filose (thread-like) projections or 'tentacles'. In some opisthokonts (Mesomycetozoa andCorallochytrium) these were lost. They are retained in Filozoa, where they are simple and non-tapering, with a rigid core ofactin bundles (contrasting with the flexible, tapering and branchedfilopodia of nucleariids and the branchedrhizoids andhyphae of fungi). In choanoflagellates and in the most primitive animals, namelysponges, they aggregate into a filter-feeding collar (made frommicrovilli, that are also made from actin) around thecilium orflagellum; this is thought to be an inheritance from their most recent common filozoan ancestor.[1]
