Polychaos is an

amoeboid An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; : amoebas (less commonly, amebas) or amoebae (amebae) ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and r ...

genus in the

Amoebozoa Amoebozoa is a major Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic group containing about 2,400 described species of Amoeba, amoeboid protists, often possessing blunt, fingerlike, Pseudopod#Morphology, lobose pseudopods and tubular mitochondrial cristae. In trad ...

group. Several characters unite the species in this genus. The

pseudopod A pseudopod or pseudopodium (: pseudopods or pseudopodia) is a temporary arm-like projection of a eukaryotic cell membrane that is emerged in the direction of movement. Filled with cytoplasm, pseudopodia primarily consist of actin filaments and ...

s meld at their bases when the organism is moving, and have dorsal, longitudinal ridges. The nucleus is oval or ellipsoidal.

Classification

''Polychaos'' includes the following species: * ''Polychaos annulatum'' (Pénard 1902) Smirnov & Goodkov 1998 * ''

Polychaos dubium ''Polychaos dubium'' is a freshwater amoeboid and one of the larger species of single-celled eukaryote. Like other amoebozoans, ''P. dubium'' moves by means of temporary projections called pseudopods. ''P. dubium'' reportedly has one of the larg ...

'' (Schaeffer, 1916) Schaeffer 1926 * ''Polychaos fasciculatum'' (Penard, 1902) Schaeffer 1926 * ''Polychaos nitidubium'' Bovee, 1970 * ''Polychaos timidum'' Bovee, 1972 Phylogenetic analysis has shown this that genus belongs to the family Hartmannellidae.

References

Amoebozoa genera {{Amoebozoa-stub