- They are both unicellular and multicellular amoeboid.
- They are single-celled organisms that combine to make larger-scale single organisms in which individual cells remain separate.
- The stalks consist of enclosed cells and their plasmodial stage is consisted of a pseudoplasmodium.
- They are fungi-like.
- They mostly reproduce asexually, for they do not usually have a sexual stage in their life cycles.
- They live in moist habitats on land, like decaying wood or fresh cow dung, leaves or other organic matter retaining significant moisture. They create slugs with one nucleus.
- They pose no threat to animals, yet they might injure plants by covering and shading them, when they grow on moist parts of lands
- They are parasitic.
- They are heterophobic.
- They are colonial.
- They have symbiotic relationships between an algae and a fungus.
Examples
Dictyostelium
|
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Dictyostelium_Aggregation.JPG
|
Polysphondylium pallidum
http://genome.imb-jena.de/Amoebae/images/polysphondylium_pallidum_1151081463_g_531w.jpg
|
Fonticula
|