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Contents 1 Picture 2 Number of Species 3 Parasites 4 yes, parasites

[edit] Picture

This page needs a new picture. The current one is pretty weird.

[edit] Number of Species

This page should say how many species are in the phylum. --Savant13 20:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Created a new page on Choanozoa. --Kupirijo 15:02, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Parasites

So should all animals be defined as parasites, as, like their ancestors the fungi, they are living off of other organisms?

[edit] yes, parasites

Photosynthetic plants are the primary producers of the fixed carbon compounds that virtually all animals eat. Therefore, in some strict sense of the word parasite, all non-photosynthetic organisms are parasites of photosynthetic organisms. Photosynthetic organisms are parasites of the sun's energy. Further discussion belongs under thermodynamics, or under semantics of the word "parasite". (However some bacteria grow using mineral substrates thereby creating biomass that is not of photosynthetic origin. I believe that non-photosynthetic biomass is not a significant proportion of the photosynthetic biomass but I do not know of an estimate of the rate or abundance of non-photosynthetic biomass.)

Note also that fungi are not the ancestors of animals; animals and fungi are thought to have a common ancestor.

Twbeals31 16:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Because there are organisms that make their own food without sunlight, the best term to use here would be autotrophs. Autotrophs are all organisms that make their own food. (Auto=self troph=nourish) I'm also unsure of how significant a presence non-photosynthetic autotrophs have, but they do exist, so simply saying "photosynthetic organisms" limits accuracy. Also, would decomposers classify as parasites? They don't make their own food, but they aren't feeding off of another living organism. Just a thought. --Joanna 14:32, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're going to stretch the word parasite to include predators, how about stretching it even further? What about creatures who do create their own food, but need other creatures for reproduction for instance? Seriously though, the normal definition requires a prolonged and intimite relationship between the organisms. So *chomp chomp* ‘nice knowing you, it was worth every second, all five of them’ doesn't quite count. Shinobu (talk) 10:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)