Brief SummaryRead full entry Cercozoa are mostly heterotrophic
protozoa dwelling abundantly in soil (where they are the most
numerous eukaryotes) and in all freshwater and marine habitats.
Some parasitize plants, invertebrate animals and other protists.
A few have become algae by enslaving photosynthetic prey to form
permanent cellular chimaeras. Free-living Cercozoa feed on
bacteria, fungi, algae, other protozoa or even microscopic
animals. They may be the most numerous predators on earth, but
unlike most predators they generally lack a mouth as they can
catch prey over much of their typically soft body surface. Their
ancestral body plan was a predatory, phagotrophic
amoeboflagellate with one anterior and one posterior cilium. One
lineage enslaved a green algal cell to become the chimaeric
chlorarachnean algae, which still retain the nucleus (as a
miniaturized nucleomorph), former plasma membrane (as the
periplastid membrane), and chloroplast of the enslaved green
alga. Cercozoa have diversified into so many