A mouth-like or throat-like feeding structure found in certain single-celled organisms, used to intake food particles or other cells.
From Greek 'kytos' (cell) + 'pharynx' (throat). This term was created to describe the specialized feeding apparatus in protozoans that resembles a miniature mouth.
Under a microscope, you can watch a paramecium's cytopharynx in action—it creates currents that pull bacteria into its cell body for digestion, basically an entire digestive system compressed into a single-celled organism.
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