Protista
To start, the Kindgdom Protista is the kingdom that includes all the organisms that no other catagory can fit in to. Let me clear up any confusion. So, all of the organisms on earth are classified into multiple different categories, including if the organism is single- celled, how it moves as well as how it obtains the required energy to sustain life.
Protista contains all other organisms that do not fit into any of the other categories. So, protista are eukaryotes (concidered to be the first actually) and include all the organisms not concidered a plant, animal or a fungi.
They can be unicellular and multicelluar, heterotropic or autostropic and can live anywhere on earth, in the water, land or even on humans. Most of the time though, these protists live in water.
There are three catagories a protist can be put into: animallike protists, plantlike protists, and fungus like protists.
Animallike Protists: also known as protozoans, can only be found in habitats containing water. Because these creatures can be found in any body of water, they can exsist anywhere in the world. To be classified as a protists, an organism must be heterotrophic and capable of moving around. "Moving around" refers to being motile in some fasion. All animallike protists have flagella, cilia or a pseudopodia.
Plantlike Protists: They are both producers and consumers, and for the most part use photosynthesis to recieve the energy that they need. Like animallike protists they must live iin water. The most common type is algae, which is easily seen by the naked- eye.
Funguslike Protist: These are organisms that are eukaryotic (all protists are) that recieve thier energy from dead matter. Two groups seperate this group, including slime mold and water molds. However all fungus- like Protists use false feet or psuepods to move around.
Some may be confused when I metioned psuepods in the last few paragraph, so I will briefly discuss the modes of transportation of a protist. All protists have a way of moving themselves through their habitat, and each uses one of the three transporters: flagella, cilia or pseudopodia. A flagella can be found in a plant or animal like protist, and the flagella acts as a tale of sorts for the protist. By making wave like movements, the flagella is able to move around an aquatic environment, and depending on the size of both the organism and the surroundings, control speed. Cilia is very similar to the flagella, but tends to be a little bit shorter in length. The functions are also similar as well. Pseudopodia means "false feet", a perfect name for these locomotives. The "false feet" move around the area, acting as feet. The picture above is an example of a protist with pseudopodias.
The reproduction of a protist is asexual, meaning that another organism is not involved to produce offspring. The reproductive proccess, is actually quite complicated, involving the parent "body" to split into two- creating the offspring. This process, despite seeming rather complicated, usually only takes a few hours to complete. This process is called cell divison.
There are other types of reproduction, because the kingdom of protists is so large, and diversere, different types, of course will reproduce differently. Multiple fission occures when the nucleus divides, actualy divides quickly and repeatedly multiple times, producing hundreds, to thousands of offspring. Naturally, there are many different types of multiple fission, depending on which mode of transportation (flagella, cilia or pseudopodia) the protist uses.
The structue of the cell is extremly complex, and come in a variety of types as well. Almost all protist are microscopic, meaning they cannot be seen with the naked- eye, but with the help of a microscope, scientists are able to see different structures of these protists. Protists can live as a colony (meaning that they have hundreds of cells, and behave as if they were a multicellular organisms, while others contains multipe nucleuses and have one cell.
Works Cited: https://sharon-taxonomy2009-p3.wikispaces.com/Protista
