Carpediemonas
This organism is a unicellular flagellated eukaryote that was first discovered in substrate samples from the Great Barrier Reef.[3] This organism has two flagella:[3] a posterior one used for feeding on the substrate, and an anterior one that moves in a slower sweeping motion.The organism was named after carpe diem, meaning "to seize the day", in honour of the wife of one of the authors, who had recently died.Ekebom et al. (1996) then renamed the organism as Carpediemonas membranifera when it was found from substrate samples in the Great Barrier Reef and classified it as a metamonad.[2] Further studies by Simpson and Patterson (1999) go into greater detail about the flagella and describe the flagellar apparatus as having a third, barren basal body.Simpson and Patterson described that in addition to the "9+2" axoneme, the posterior flagellum also has "three radiating lamellae of electron-dense material which form the central components of vanes".In the fornicates, Carpediemonas-like organisms (CLOs) have allowed for the better understanding of the evolution of anaerobic excavates by studying their cytoskeletal traits and modified mitochondria.This hypothesis uses elements of processes observed in other species but takes into account the specific protein complements found in Carpediemonas.However, the study confirms the conservation of key meiotic proteins in the group with the bonus finding that Carpediemonas species have homologs from the tmcB family and sperm-specific channel subunits, the latter only previously reported in Opisthokonta and three other protists.