Amoeba proteus
Overview
 
Amoeba proteus, previously Chaos diffluens, is an amoeba
Amoeba
Amoeba is a genus of Protozoa.History=The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757. Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape...

 closely related to the Giant Amoebae
Chaos (amoeba)
Chaos is a genus of giant amoebae. The largest and best known species, Chaos carolinensis, can reach lengths of 5mm, although most specimens fall between 1 and 3 mm....

.

This small protozoan uses tentacular
Tentacle
A tentacle or bothrium is one of usually two or more elongated flexible organs present in animals, especially invertebrates. The term may also refer to the hairs of the leaves of some insectivorous plants. Usually, tentacles are used for feeding, feeling and grasping. Anatomically, they work like...

 protuberances called pseudopodia to move and phagocytose smaller unicellular organisms, which are enveloped inside the cell's cytoplasm
Cytoplasm
The cytoplasm is a small gel-like substance residing between the cell membrane holding all the cell's internal sub-structures , except for the nucleus. All the contents of the cells of prokaryote organisms are contained within the cytoplasm...

 in a food vacuole
Vacuole
A vacuole is a membrane-bound organelle which is present in all plant and fungal cells and some protist, animal and bacterial cells. Vacuoles are essentially enclosed compartments which are filled with water containing inorganic and organic molecules including enzymes in solution, though in certain...

, where they are slowly broken down by enzymes.
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