An order of green algae with cells containing chlorophyll and characterized by distinctive storage compounds and flagella structure.
From Greek hetero- (different) + chlor- (green) + -idales (order suffix). Scientific taxonomy name from late 19th/early 20th century algae classification.
These algae reveal how evolution experiments with different body plans—they're green like plants but built nothing like them, showing that chlorophyll appeared in many unrelated organisms.
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