Symbiontida

Symbiontida is a basalclass of flagellateEuglenozoa. As euglenozoans may be basal eukaryotes, the Symbiontida may be key to studying the evolution of eukaryotes, including the incorporation of eukaryotic traits such as the incorporation of alphaproteobacterialmitochondrialendosymbionts.

Euglenozoa are a large group of flagellateDiscoba. They include a variety of common free-living species, as well as a few important parasites, some of which infect humans. Euglenozoa are represented by four major classes, i.e.,Kinetoplastea, Diplonemea, Euglenida, and Symbiontida. Euglenozoa are unicellular, mostly around 15–40 μm (0.00059–0.00157 in) in size, although some euglenids get up to 500 μm (0.020 in) long.