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Essay / Xenophyophore Essay - 998
As reported by Levin and Gooday (1992), the food consumed by xenophyophores consisted mainly of detrital particles. It has been observed that in (or adsorbed into) xenophyophore tests, there is an abundance of feces consisting of mineral grains (Levin and Gooday, 1992). As xenophyophores are deep-sea benthic detritivores, their feeding behavior was thought to be similar to that of amoebae. Three modes of feeding behavior have been proposed by scientists, namely: suspension feeding (Tendal, 1972), feeding by surface deposition (Lemche et al., cited in Levin and Gooday, 1992, p. 99 ) and particle trapping in the tests. (Levin and Thomas,