In: Biology
What is a paramecium's method of locomotion? (What does it use to move?) Is it a autotroph, heterotroph, or mixotroph?
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Q. What is a paramecium's method of locomotion? (What does it use to move?) Is it a autotroph, heterotroph, or mixotroph?
Answer: Paramecium is widely found in freshwater, marine water, and brackish water. They mostly found at the stagnant part of these waterbodies. It is used as the model organism to study various biological processes. Its size varies from 50 to 330 mm in length h and cells are ovoid, elongate, foot or cigar shape. Paramecium use cilia for the locomotion. Hence its locomotion is known as ciliary motion. These cilia are tiny hair-like structure found all around the organism, these cilia’s help organism to pull itself through the water. The movement of cilia is not in the similar direction so when paramecium pull itself through water it moves in the spiral direction. The diagram of Paramecium showing Cilia on body surface is given below:
Paramecium is heterotroph because it did not perform photosynthesis to produce its own food in the presence of sunlight.