What Are Protists?
Name: ______________________________ Date: ____________
In this exercise we will explore the Internet to learn about Protists, but first we
need to understand where the Protists fit in the classification system.
Easier said than done!
We have a problem in taxonomy today; the classification of biological organisms is
anything but cut-and-dried (or carved in stone)! A certain amount of chaos now
reigns and will continue to reign until the next great synthesis occurs among
biologists. This means that you can expect a certain amount of disagreement
between what textbooks and the various sites on the web will tell you about
classification.
Right now you are familiar with two current models of classification:
1) A living thing is either a Prokaryote or Eukaryote.
2) A living thing is in one of the following kingdoms: Monera, Protista, Fungi,
Plantae or Animalia.
We tend to overlay the two as follows:
Prokaryote = Monera
Eukaryote = Protista, Fungi, Animalia and Plantae.
But biologists have many other schemes in the works. One new classification
scheme classifies all living things into three “Domains”.
Q. What are the names of the three domains?
A.
Q. Why are the prokaryotes divided into two different domains in this classification
model?
A.
Q. How are the Archaea different from the Bacteria?
A.
Q. Which domain are the Protista in?
A.
Some biologists have married the three domain system and the five kingdom
system and come up with a six kingdom system (shown below). Note:
Archaeabacteria is the old name for Archaea.
Image from W.H. Freeman and Sinauer Associates, used by permission
