The mouth-like opening or feeding aperture in certain protozoans and other single-celled organisms.
From cyto- (Greek kytos, 'cell') + -stome (Greek stoma, 'mouth'). This term was coined by 19th-century protozoologists studying organisms like paramecia and ciliates.
Paramecia actually have a mouth, throat, and esophagus—structures we thought only multicellular organisms could have—which blew scientists' minds and changed how we think about cellular specialization!
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