School of Anthias over green algae
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Image courtesy of Corel Photography
Related links:
A Matter of Scale - interactive showing the sizes of things, from very tiny to huge - from NSF
Microscopic Fossils Offer Big Clues to Earth's Climate
Kingdom Protista
Members of the Kingdom Protista are the simplest of the eukaryotes.
Protists are an unusual group of organisms that were put together because
they don't really seem to belong to any other group. Some protists
perform photosynthesis like
plants while
others move around and act like
animals, but
protists are neither plants nor
animals. They're not fungi either - even though some might like to "think" they are!
In some ways, the Kingdom Protista is home for the "leftover" organisms that couldn't be classified elsewhere. You might not think a tiny one-celled amoeba has much in common with a giant sea kelp, but they're both members of this kingdom.
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