What are Protists

About Protists:

• Protists are a diverse collection of organisms that do not fit into animal, plant, bacteria, or fungi groups.
• Kingdom Protista is one of the six kingdoms of life (the others being Eubacteria, Archae, Fungi, Plantae, and Animalia).
• Protists are believed to be the common ancestral link between plants, animals, and fungi from which these three groups branched out in the process of evolution. 
• Protists are eukaryotes as they possess a nucleus and other membrane-bound organelles (structures that perform a specific job). 
• The majority of them are unicellular, like an amoeba; however, a few protists are multicellular, like seaweed.
• However, multicellular protists do not have highly specialized tissues or organs.
• Most protists have mitochondria, the organelle that generates energy for cells to use. The exceptions are some protists that live in anoxic conditions or environments lacking in oxygen.
• Habitat: Nearly all protists exist in some type of aquatic environment, including freshwater and marine environments, damp soil, and even snow.
• Many protists, such as algae, are photosynthetic and are vital primary producers in ecosystems.
• Some protists are responsible for a range of serious human diseases, such as malaria and sleeping sickness.