What is Pseudopodia

Q. What is pseudopodia?

All sarcodine protozoans (those having pseudopodia; see sarcodine) and some flagellate protozoans use pseudopodia, also called pseudopod, as a transient or semipermanent expansion of the cytoplasm for motility and nutrition. Amoebas and some cells of higher animals (such as white blood corpuscles) generate pseudopodia. Pseudopodia flow around and swallow prey or traps it in a tiny, sticky net during amoeboid eating. Even more than flagella and cilia, pseudopodia are commonly used in phagotrophic feeding and movement. Pseudopod types, numbers, forms, distribution, and behaviours are all essential morphological concerns.

There are four different forms of pseudopodia in protozoa. Amoeba lobopodia are blunt and fingerlike; filopodia are slim and tapering, every once in a while forming simple, branched channels; foraminiferan reticulopodia are sprouting filaments that meld to form nutrition traps; and actinopod axopodia are extensive and sticky (like reticulopodia), but re-emit- emit or alone and have a stiff, intrinsic rod made up of numerous microtubules. Lobopodia and filopodia are generated by a pressure mechanism, while reticulopodia and axopodia are formed by a two-way cytoplasmic flow.

Axopodia are substantially more complicated than other pseudopod kinds. They are made up of an exterior layer of flowing cytoplasm around an inner core holding a bundle of cross-linked microtubules in unique patterns. Extrusible organelles used in prey capture may be found in the outer cytoplasm. Retraction of an axopod is fast in some forms but not in others, and extension is sluggish in all protists with axopodia. Axopodia move in a variety of ways; for example, the marine pelagic creature Sticholonche has axopodia that move like oars, even turning in oarlock-like basal sockets.