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Stramenopile

The stramenopiles are a major group of eukaryotes, including the heterokonts and a few close relatives. These are distinguished by having tripartite mastigonemes, or are secondarily derived from forms that do. In addition to the heterokont algae, they include the following:

The stramenopiles were defined by D.J. Patterson, and were his prototype for rankless taxa. They essentially correspond to the kingdom Chromista defined by Thomas Cavalier-Smith, except that also includes the haptophytes and cryptomonads, on the supposition that they all share a common origin from a colored ancestor.

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