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Concept
Myxogastria
Summary
Myxogastria/Myxogastrea (myxogastrids, ICZN) or Myxomycetes (ICN), is a class of slime molds that contains 5 orders, 14 families, 62 genera, and 888 species. They are colloquially known as the plasmodial or acellular slime moulds.
All species pass through several, very different morphologic phases, such as microscopic individual cells, slimy amorphous organisms visible with the naked eye and conspicuously shaped fruit bodies. Although they are monocellular, they can reach immense widths and weights: in extreme cases they can be up to across and weigh up to .
The class Myxogastria is distributed worldwide, but it is more common in temperate regions where it has a higher biodiversity than in polar regions, the subtropics or tropics. They are mainly found in open forests, but also in extreme regions such as deserts, under snow blankets or underwater. They also occur on the bark of trees, sometimes high in the canopy. These are known as corticolous myxomycetes. Most species are very small.
The Latin name Myxomycota comes from the Ancient Greek words μύξα myxa, which means "mucus", and μύκης mykes, which means "fungus". The name Myxogastria was introduced in 1970 by Lindsay Shepherd Olive to describe the family Myxogastridae, which was introduced in 1899 by Thomas Huston Macbride. Swedish mycologist Elias Magnus Fries described numerous slime moulds as Myxogasteres in 1829. Species in the class Myxomycota are colloquially known as plasmodial or acellular slime moulds. Some consider the Myxomycota to be a separate kingdom, with an unsettled phylogeny because of conflicting molecular and developmental data. The relations among Myxogastrid orders are as yet unclear.
The continuous classification of new taxa reveals that the class is not fully described. The class comprises around 900–1000 species. According to a 2000 inquiry, there were 1012 officially accepted taxa, including 866 on species level. Another study in 2007 stated a number of more than 1000, in which the Myxogastria comprised the biggest group of slime moulds, with over 900 species.
Official source
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