- Hatena
Hatena ("Hatena arenicola") is a one celled organism recently discovered in
Japan . It is aflagellate and can resemble aplant oranimal , acting aspredator in one stage of its life, then carrying a photosynthesizingalga inside itself in another, appearing much more like a plant. Researchers believe that this organism is in the process ofendosymbiosis where one lifeform incorporates itself into another, resulting in a completely new lifeform, in the same way that plants and animals diverged.The name is from a Japanese interjection meaning roughly "how odd"or"?".
ee also
*
Endosymbiotic theory ources
* [http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=000DBF79-0930-134F-893083414B7F0000 Scientific American]
External links
* Original description of Hatena [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16891155]
* Some pictures [http://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2007/05/caught_in_the_a.html]
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