Amoeba dubia

The "Amoeba dubia" is the largest species of the kingdom Amoebozoa, more commonly referred to as Amoeba. It is a genus of protozoa that moves by means of temporary projections called pseudopods, and is well-known as a representative unicellular organism. It can be as large as a millimeter in length, and can be viewed with the naked eye.

The "Amoeba dubia" also has the largest genome known to date. This protozoan genome has 670 billion base pairs of DNA, over 200 times larger than the human genome. The genome of a cousin, "Amoeba proteus", has 290 billion base pairs.

References

*Leidy, Joseph (1878). "Amoeba proteus". "The American Naturalist, 12(4):235-238".

External links

* [http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/02_01/Sizing_genomes.shtml Genome News Network]