Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🦟 Malaria parasite 🧫 Moving cell mass
plasmodium

plasmodium

9.9
A large slimy mass of cells in slime molds that moves and eats food as one body
  • noun
  • /plæzˈmoʊdiəm/
  • Specialized
translation icon : plasmodio
  • Scientists studied the behavior of the plasmodium to understand its feeding patterns and movement.

Examples

  • During its growth phase, the plasmodium moves through the soil, engulfing nutrients as it travels.

  • "As the plasmodium is foraging, we found that it strongly avoids areas that contain extracellular slime.

    Blog text (29)

  • "As it moves, the plasmodium leaves behind a thick mat of nonliving, translucent, extracellular slime," the scientists said in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 8.

    Blog text (29)

  • The researcher observed that the plasmodium was feeding on organic matter in the petri dish.

Compounds

Plasmodium falciparum
  • Specialized
1 8.4

A parasite made of one cell that causes the most severe kind of malaria in humans

Plasmodium vivax
  • Specialized
9.6

A one-celled parasite that causes a form of malaria in people with returning fevers

Surface Forms

plasmodium singular
plasmodia plural

Morphology

plasmodium = plasma (semi-transparent) = plasm + ium

The biological sense 'a mass of cytoplasm' directly relates to 'plasma/plasm-', but the term is technical and may not be fully accessible to general learners.

Etymology

Plasmodium comes from the Greek plasma meaning 'something formed', a root you also see in plastic. That is a helpful way to remember that a plasmodium in slime molds is a single, formed mass of cell material that moves and feeds as one body.