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
polyphyly, 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.
