New Kingdom of Life
A newly-discovered life form is so strange it doesn't fit anywhere else on the tree of life. Researchers in Nova Scotia have found a unique species that appears to be from a completely new kingdom of life, separate from plants, animals, or pretty much everything else. Hemimastigotes are so distant from all other forms of life that they likely deserve their own kingdom designation. hemimastigotes are so strange and different that they can’t fit into any of these categories—even the catch-all one—leading the researchers at Dalhousie to propose a new kingdom just for them. 1
Hemimastigophora is a novel supra-kingdom-level lineage of eukaryotes
Almost all eukaryote life forms have now been placed within one of five to eight supra-kingdom-level groups using molecular phylogenetics1,2,3,4. The ‘phylum’ Hemimastigophora is probably the most distinctive morphologically defined lineage that still awaits such a phylogenetic assignment. 2
1. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a25182633/scientists-discover-a-whole-new-kingdom-of-life/
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0708-8
A newly-discovered life form is so strange it doesn't fit anywhere else on the tree of life. Researchers in Nova Scotia have found a unique species that appears to be from a completely new kingdom of life, separate from plants, animals, or pretty much everything else. Hemimastigotes are so distant from all other forms of life that they likely deserve their own kingdom designation. hemimastigotes are so strange and different that they can’t fit into any of these categories—even the catch-all one—leading the researchers at Dalhousie to propose a new kingdom just for them. 1
Hemimastigophora is a novel supra-kingdom-level lineage of eukaryotes
Almost all eukaryote life forms have now been placed within one of five to eight supra-kingdom-level groups using molecular phylogenetics1,2,3,4. The ‘phylum’ Hemimastigophora is probably the most distinctive morphologically defined lineage that still awaits such a phylogenetic assignment. 2
1. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a25182633/scientists-discover-a-whole-new-kingdom-of-life/
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0708-8
