Know anything about Euglena Gracilis???

Question

Can the "Euglena Gracilis" continue growing/developing forever???

Answer 1

Euglena are common protists, of the class Euglenoidea of the phylum Euglenophyta. Currently, over 1000 species of Euglena have been described. Marin et al. (2003) revised the genus so and including several species without chloroplasts, formerly classified as Astasia and Khawkinea. Euglena sometimes can be considered to have both plant and animal features.

A euglena is a protist that can eat food like animals do (partly heterotrophic) and can make food like plants do (partly autotrophic). Euglena can surround a particle of food and eat it (phagocytosis). Many Euglena contain chloroplasts and chlorophyll a and b. Euglena live in fresh water, salt water and in the soil. Many Euglena are able to move by using a flagellum, a long whip-like structure. When the water dries up, a euglena forms a thick protective wall around itself and lies dormant in the form of a spore until the environment improves. It reproduces by fission like amoeba.

Answer 2

An interesting philosophical question.  Can one of the cells formed by binary fission of a Euglena be considered to be the "original" and the other an entirely new cell?  But both new cells share the contents of the original cell equally, and then grow. That's the most common means of reproduction for Euglena.

They also reproduce by zoospores, but that's much rarer.

I would not say that a single cell continues "forever", but that the cell *line* continues.