The five kingdom system is the most common way of grouping living things based on

simple distinctive characteristics. Classification systems are always changing as new

information is made available. Modern technologies such as Genetics makes it
possible to unravel evolutionary relationships to greater and greater detail. The five-
kingdom system was developed by Robert H. Whittaker in 1969 and was built on the
work of previous biologists such as Carolus Linnaeus.

Kingdom Animalia
Kingdom Plantae
Kingdom Fungi
Kingdom Protista
Kingdom Monera (Bacteria)
Organisms are classified into three Domains and into one of six Kingdoms of life. These
Kingdoms are Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia.

Organisms are placed into these categories based on similarities or

common characteristics. Some of the characteristics that are used to
determine placement are cell type, nutrient acquisition, and
reproduction. The two main cell types are prokaryotic and eukaryotic
cells. Common types of nutrient acquisition include photosynthesis,
absorption, and ingestion. Types of reproduction include asexual
reproduction and sexual reproduction.

Archaebacteria
Eubacteria
Protista
Fungi
Plantae
Animalia
1.Protozoans are usually microscopic and unicellular individuals.
2. They exhibit all types of symmetry.
3. Most species occur as single but many are colonial.
4. Body is bounded by a cell membrane or plasmalemma.
5. Body may be naked or is covered by a pellicle or a test, made of silica or calcium
carbonate.

6. A filamentous network of the cytoskeleton may form a dense supportive

structure, called the epiplasm.
7. Usually uninucleate, but may be more than single nucleus in some forms.
8. Locomotor organelles may be flagella (e.g., Euglena), cilia (e.g.,
Paramoecium), pseudopodium (e.g., Amoeba) or absent in parasitic forms
(contractile myonemes are present in the body).
9. Nutrition may be holozoic, e.g., Amoeba (animal-like), holophytic (e.g.,
Euglena), saprophytic, mixotrophic or parasitic.
10. Intracellular type of digestion occurs within the food vacuoles.
11.Respiration performs generally through the outer surface of the body,
but may be few obligatory or facultative anaerobes.
12. Excretion performs generally through the body surface, and water
regulation of the body is accomplished by contractile vacuole.
13. Asexual reproduction occurs by fission (mitosis), plasmotomy or bud-
ding. In certain forms sexual reproduction may occur either by conjugation
or fusion by gametes (syngamy).
14. They never develop from blastula stage during development.
15. Mainly aquatic but many are parasitic, commensal or mutualistic.
The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of
an organism. There are several different skeletal types: the exoskeleton,
which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which
forms the support structure inside the body, the hydroskeleton, and
the cytoskeleton.The term comes from Greek (skeletós), meaning dried up.
In Protozoa, the body envelope and external skeletal layers mark the
boundary line between the body protoplasm and external environment. These
protect them from external environmental hazards. The body envelope, being
selective in nature, allows exchange of substances across it and helps in
perceiving various types of stimuli.

However, the body envelope, in protozoans, may be either plasma

lemma or pellicle. In some species like Amoeba proteus, the body
envelope is a thin plasma membrane or plasma lemma which is
mucopolysaccharide in nature.
It helps in adhesion to the substratum and in the exchange of various
materials. The pellicle is comparatively thicker, tough, elastic and proteinous in
nature; it helps in maintaining the general shape of the protozoans and
performs the usual functions as referred earlier.

The skeletal layers are secreted in still other protozoans in which their
protoptasmic body remains protected. These include cyst, theca, lorica and
test or shell.
The cyst is an external temporary sheath formed both by free-living and
parasitic individuals. It is primarily secreted during un-favourable conditions.

The encysted individuals comfortably tide over the environmental

hazards.
The theca is another skeletal layer found in many dinoflagellates like
Ceratium and Glenodinium

It is a coat of closely-fitted armour of cellulose, comparable to the thick cell

walls of higher plants.
The lorica, in majority of dinoflagellates, is differentiated into a number of
plates arranged into a definite pattern; but in some forms, it may be formed
of two valves.

The lorica is still another skeletal layer found in certain protozoans like
Salpingoeca, Monosiga, Dinobryon, Synura splendida and Poteriodendron,
etc. In fact, it is a coat of less-closely fitted armour of protozoans than the
theca.

The lorica is usually vase-shaped or tubular having an opening for the

emergence of the anterior part of the animal or its appendages.
The base of the lorica is either attached directly to the substratum (in
sessile, individuals like Salpingoeca) or it may terminate in a stalk like
Monosiga. In colonial loricated protozoans, one lorica may be attached to
another lorica directly as in Dinobryon or one lorica may be attached to
another lorica by a stalk as in Poteriodendron and Synura splendida.
 Monosiga ovata

Poteriodendron
Synura splendida
The shells or tests are still other skeletal layer of protozoans; these are of
common occurrence.

. There are loose armour with one or more openings over the body of protozoans
like Arcella, Difflugia, Euglypha, etc. In Arcella the shell is thin and composed of
pseudochitin (proteins plus carbohydrates) and ventrally it has an aperture from
which 3 or 4 pseudopodia project out.

In Difflugia the shell is made of sand and other foreign substances like
fragments of foraminiferan’s shell and sponge spicules. These foreign substances
get embedded in a secreted matrix by the animal, working like cement, to form
the shell.

The foraminiferan’s shells are made of calcium carbonate, while shells found
in some rhizopods like Euglypha are siliceous being made of silica.
Arcella Difflugia

Euglypha
The radiolarian’s shells are internal skeletal layer lying between
ectoplasm and endoplasm. It forms a central capsule, which is composed
of pseudo-chitin or silica or strontium sulphate and secreted by the
cytoplasm.
The central capsule is perforated by one to many pores through which
the extra- capsular cytoplasm extends out as fine pseudopodia.