Tubulinea


The Tubulinea are a major grouping of Amoebozoa, including most of the more familiar amoebae genera like Amoeba, Arcella, Difflugia and Hartmannella.

Characteristics

During locomotion most Tubulinea have a roughly cylindrical form or produce numerous cylindrical pseudopods. Each cylinder advances by a single central stream of cytoplasm, granular in appearance, and has no subpseudopodia. This distinguishes them from other amoeboid groups, although in some members this is not the normal type of locomotion.

Classification

This class was anticipated by some biologists such as Jahn, who grouped all amoebae with granular pseudopodia together, but most split the lobose amoebae into testate Testacealobosia and naked Gymnamoebia. These latter are polyphyletic, but molecular trees by Bolivar et al. identified a core monophyletic subgroup. Subsequent studies showed the testate lobose amoebae belong to the same group, which was thus renamed Lobosea sensu stricto or Tubulinea.

Taxonomy

The class Tubulinea, as of 2022, is classified into three major groups: Corycida, Echinamoebida and Elardia. The most taxonomically abundant group is Elardia, which contains the testate amoebae of Arcellinida and the naked amoebae of orders Leptomyxida and Euamoebida.