Meaning of opisthokont | Babel Free

Definitions

Any of very many eukaryotes, including animals and fungi, whose flagellate cells (if any) propel themselves with a single posterior flagellum.

Examples

“Based on a single posterior flagellum (opisthokont), flattened, nondiscoid mitochondrial cristae, a chitinous exoskeleton, storage of glycogen instead of starch, lack of chloroplasts, and the code UGA for tryptophan, not chain termination, in their mitochondria, Cavalier-Smith [54] suggests a common origin of the true fungi with animalia and choanoflagellate protozoa (fig. 1).”

“However, these characters are only sporadically found among the various opisthokont allies (described above).”

“Although the group embraces taxa that are diverse in morphology and life history, cells of undisputed opisthokonts have a single emergent flagellum which projects behind the cells while they swim. This is treated as defining the opisthokont ancestry.”

CEFR level