opisthokont

English

Etymology

From opistho- +‎ -kont (“flagellate”) from Ancient Greek κοντός (kontós, “pole”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɒˈpɪsθəʊ̆kɒnt/

Noun

opisthokont (plural opisthokonts)

1. (biology) Any of very many eukaryotes, including animals and fungi, whose flagellate cells (if any) propel themselves with a single posterior flagellum.
   • 2002, Michael Breitenbach, Reto Crameri, Samuel B. Lehrer, Fungal Allergy and Pathogenicity‎^[1], Karger Medical and Scientific Publishers, →ISBN, page 211, →ISBN:

     Based on a single posterior flagellum (opisthokont), flattened, nondiscoid mitochondrial cristae, a chitinous exoskeleton, storage of glycogen instead of starch, lack of chloroplasts, and the code UGA for tryptophan, not chain termination, in their mitochondria, Cavalier-Smith [54] suggests a common origin of the true fungi with animalia and choanoflagellate protozoa (fig. 1).

   • 2004, Joel Cracraft, Michael J. Donoghue, Assembling the Tree of Life‎^[2], Oxford University Press (USA), →ISBN, page 68, →ISBN:

     However, these characters are only sporadically found among the various opisthokont allies (described above).

   • 2006, Laura Katz Olson, Debashish Bhattacharya, Genomics and Evolution of Microbial Eukaryotes‎^[3], Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 13, →ISBN:

     Although the group embraces taxa that are diverse in morphology and life history, cells of undisputed opisthokonts have a single emergent flagellum which projects behind the cells while they swim. This is treated as defining the opisthokont ancestry.

Hypernyms

• unikont

Related terms

• opistho-
• Opisthokonta