THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



the protists which were counted as bacteria a real nu- 

 cleus has been detected, these must be separated from 

 the others (unnucleated) and included in the nucleated 

 flagellata. 



The monera which I described in 1866, and on which 

 I based the theory of the monera in my monograph, 

 belong to a different division of the protists from the 

 classes of bacteria and chromacea. These are the forms 

 which I described as protamceba, protogenes, protomyxa, 

 etc. Their naked mobile plasma -bodies thrust out 

 pseudopodia, or variable "false feet," from their surface, 

 like the (nucleated) real rhizopods ( = sarcodinae); but 

 they differ essentially from the latter in the absence of a 

 nucleus. Afterwards (in my Systematic Phylogeny) I 

 proposed to separate these unnucleated rhizopods from 

 the others, giving the name of lobomonera (protamceba) 

 to the amoeba-like monera with flap-shaped feet, and 

 the name of rhizomonera {protomyxa, pontomyxa, bio- 

 myxa, arachmda, etc.) to the gromia-like, root-feet form- 

 ing monera. However, of late years, real nuclei have 

 been detected in each of these large monera, and so they 

 have been proved to be true cells. This discovery was 

 made possible by the improved modern methods of col- 

 oring the nucleus which I had not the use of thirty years 

 ago in my first observations. On the strength of these 

 recent discoveries many scientists claim that all the 

 monera I described are true cells, and must have nuclei, 

 This baseless assertion is much employed by the op- 

 ponents of the theory of evolution in order to deny the 

 existence of the monera altogether. 



Of the genus of monera which we call protamoeba I 

 have given an illustration in my History of Creation 

 (tenth edition), which has been frequently reproduced. 

 Several species (at least two or three) of this genus still 

 exist, and are distinguished by the shape of their flap- 

 formation and their method of motion. They resemble 



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