Tsukubamonas

Tsukubamonas is a unicellular heterotrophic, biflagellated excavate of the Discoba clade (along with jakobids, euglenozoans and percolozoans) with only one species known, Tsukubamonas globosa. It inhabits fresh-water, feeds on bacteria, and can exist as a vegetative cell or cyst. The cells are characterised with a spherical or semi-spherical shape, are highly vacuolated with thin subsurface vesicles and the absence of a contractile vacuole, tubular cristae in its mitochondria, and two flagella of an apparatus with five main structures (four basal bodies, three major microtubule roots, four major fibres, one microtubule organization center, and several internal microtubules). Tsukubamonas is notable for having a backwards right root, a differentiation of its anterior root orientation, and for having a lack of a left root. Other notable differences are in the morphology of its singlet root and associated fibre, the lack of flagella vanes, and in its cytoskeletal structure. The research has currently acknowledged its placement within the Discoba clade as its own individual group, with its mitochondrial genome to be around 48,643 base pairs long.