Holozoa

Holozoa is a group of living things that includes animals, and some single-celled relatives of animals. It excludes fungi. Holozoa is also an old name for the tunicate genus Distaplia.

Holozoa Temporal range: Early Tonian - Present, 1000–0 Ma Had'n Archean Proterozoic Pha.
File:Elephant-ear-sponge.jpg
Orange elephant ear sponge, Agelas clathrodes, in foreground. Two corals in the background: a sea fan, Iciligorgia schrammi, and a sea rod, Plexaurella nutans.
Scientific classification e
(unranked):	Unikonta
(unranked):	Obazoa
(unranked):	Opisthokonta
(unranked):	Holozoa Lang et al., 2002
Subgroups
Ichthyosporea (= Mesomycetozoea) Pluriformea Corallochytrium Syssomonas Filozoa Filasterea Choanozoa Choanoflagellata Metazoa (animals)

Holozoa is a clade: a group of plants or animals with a common ancestor. It has all organisms close to animals.

An example of a well-known holozoan is the choanoflagellate, which looks a lot like the cells of a sponge. Proterospongia is an example of a choanoflagellate that might give clues as to how sponges evolved.

Evolution

The phylogenic tree (evolution tree) below shows how clades broke into newer clades. This includes Holozoa.

Opisthokonta	Holomycota Cristidiscoidea Fonticulida Nucleariida 60 px Fungi/Zoosporia BCG2 True Fungi 60 px Aphelida BCG1 Rozellomyceta/ Rozella 80 px Namako-37 MicrosporidiaFile:Fibrillanosema spore.jpg Holozoa Ichthyosporea 60 px Pluriformea Syssomonas Corallochytrium 60 px Filozoa Filasterea 60 px Choanozoa Choanoflagellatea Animalia 60 px

Holozoa Media

• Nuclearia_sp_Nikko_(cropped)

• Linear arrangement of ascospores in the asci of the fungus Sordaria macrospora Cropped.jpg

  Linear_arrangement_of_ascospores_in_the_asci_of_the_fungus_Sordaria_macrospora_Cropped

• Chromosphaera perkinsii.jpg

  DIC microscopy

• Syssomonas 2X 2020.webp

  General view of flagellated cell (scanning electron microscopy, SEM) of Syssomonas multiformis

• 

  ctenophora

• RG347357480 Fig1.png

  Unicellular holozoans do not go through animal embryonic development, but they display developmental processes using similar molecules. An actomyosin network controls the cellularization of both an ichthyosporean coenocyte (A) and a fruit fly blastoderm (B).