Specimen image via iDigBio · CC0
Myxozoa
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Myxozoa (etymology: Greek: μύξα myxa "slime" or "mucus" + thematic vowel o + ζῷον zoon "animal") is a class of aquatic cnidarian animals – all obligate parasites. It contains the smallest animals ever known to have lived. Over 2,180 species have been described and some estimates have suggested at least 30,000 undiscovered species. Many have a two-host lifecycle, involving a fish and an annelid worm or a bryozoan. The average size of a myxosporean spore usually ranges from 10 μm to 20 μm, whereas that of a malacosporean (a subclade of the Myxozoa) spore can be up to 2 mm. My
Species
myxozoans
CLASS
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumCnidaria
- ClassMyxozoa
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 61
- With media
- 5
- Collections
- MSB, USNM, QM
- Recorded in
- United States, Panama, Colombia, Cuba, Australia
Research
1,522 papers- Myxosporea (Myxozoa, Cnidaria) Lack DNA Cytosine Methylation.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021
- The Road To Cnidaria: History of Phylogeny of the Myxozoa.The Journal of parasitology · 2015
- A novel Ceratomyxa species (Myxozoa: Cnidaria) infecting an Amazonian catfish.Parasitology international · 2022
- Detection of Kudoa thyrsites (Myxozoa) eDNA by real-time and digital PCR from high seawater volumes.Journal of fish diseases · 2022
- The Multipartite Mitochondrial Genome of Enteromyxum leei (Myxozoa): Eight Fast-Evolving Megacircles.Molecular biology and evolution · 2017
via PubMed
~10 min read
Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Life cycle and pathology
- Anatomy
- Phylogenetics
- Taxonomy
- See also
- References
- External links
Myxozoa (etymology: Greek: μύξα myxa "slime" or "mucus" + thematic vowel o + ζῷον zoon "animal") is a class of aquatic cnidarian animals – all obligate parasites. It contains the smallest animals ever known to have lived. Over 2,180 species have been described and some estimates have suggested at least 30,000 undiscovered species. Many have a two-host lifecycle, involving a fish and an annelid worm or a bryozoan. The average size of a myxosporean spore usually ranges from 10 μm to 20 μm, whereas that of a malacosporean (a subclade of the Myxozoa) spore can be up to 2 mm. Myxozoans can live in both freshwater and marine habitats.
Myxozoans are highly derived cnidarians that have undergone dramatic evolution from a free swimming, self-sufficient jellyfish-like creature into their current form of obligate parasites composed of very few cells. As myxozoans evolved into microscopic parasites, they lost many genes responsible for multicellular development, coordination, cell–cell communication, and even, in some cases, aerobic respiration. The genomes of some myxozoans are now among the smallest genomes of any known animal species.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Myxozoa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.