An Amoeba proteus, left, with a Paramecium bursaria. Amoeba can change shape and move around by extending their pseudopodia, or 'false feet.' Paramecium move by using the cilia, or tiny hair-like structures, that cover their entire bodies.
The term "brain-eating amoeba" makes the amoeba sound like a tiny zombie stalking your skull. But brains are accidental food for them. According to the CDC, N. fowleri normally eats bacteria.
Chaos is a genus of amoebae, in the family Amoebidae. The largest and best-known species, the so-called "giant amoeba" (Chaos carolinense), can reach lengths of 5 mm, although most specimens fall between 1 and 3 mm.
Dictyostelium discoideum is a species of soil-living amoeba belonging to the phylum Amoebozoa, infraphylum Mycetozoa.Commonly referred to as slime mold, D. discoideum is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular amoebae into a multicellular slug and then into a fruiting body within its lifetime. Its unique asexual lifecycle consists of four stages: vegetative, aggregation ...
Entamoeba histolytica is an anaerobic parasitic amoebozoan, part of the genus Entamoeba. Predominantly infecting humans and other primates causing amoebiasis, E. histolytica is estimated to infect about 50 million people worldwide.