prothalloid (prot haloid)

[ prothallus (pro-thal'us), n.; pl. prothalli (-1). [NL., [N established by Laurenti in 1768.-3+. [NL.] In Protozoa, a genus of animalcules, based as such by O. F. Müller in 1786 upon the proteus or protean animalcule of earlier writers, asτος, first, first, + ἔλμινς (έλμινθ-), a worm: see hel Rösel, 1755. The genus is the same as Amœba, a common species of which is named Amœba proteus. This generic name is untenable, because antedated in the bi nomial system by the amphibian genus Proteus of Laurenti, for, although the na name proteus was first applied to these animalcules, it was given at a time when genera, in the modern sense of the term, had not been established zoology. Amœba. 4. [..] An animalcule of the genus Proteus (or Amaba ); an amœba. proteus-animal culet (prō'tūs-an-i-mal"kūl), n. Same as proteus , 4.