Holozoic nutrition definition: Holo means whole and zoic means animals. That is to say, those animals takes the whole food particle as food and ingest it.

1. Holozoic Nutrition:
What is meant by holozoic nutrition in scientific terms? "Holo" means whole and "zoic"
coos which means animal. Hence, it means that those animals take their food as a whole.
So, how can we define holozoic nutrition? How does it take place in the organisms which
take the food, digest it, assimilate it, absorb it and finally eliminate the waste material from
the body?
Let's know what is meant by ingestion, digestion, absorption, assimilation, and excretion.
Holozoic Nutrition Steps:
Ingestion:
Complex food is taken into the digestive system through the mouth or an opening is called
ingestion.
Digestion:
The food particles are broken down into simpler forms by the process of digestion.
Absorption:
Vital nutrients are absorbed by the body through absorption.
Assimilation:
Digestive nutrients are used to make material known as assimilation.
Excretion:
The waste material is eliminated from the body.
In which organisms holozoic nutrition takes place?
• Amoeba,
• Paramecium,
• Euglena,
• Humans, etc.

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Holozoic Nutrition in Amoeba:
Amoeba is a unicellular primitive organism that undergoes holozoic nutrition. In amoeba,
pseudopodia are present all over the body and are responsible for the change in the shape of
the organism.
Whenever it finds food particles near to it, amoeba projects finger-like structures across the
food particles and draw them into the body along with some amount of water to form a food
vacuole.
This food vacuole secretes some digestive enzymes and breaks down the food particle into
smaller ones.
Then it will be absorbed into the body and utilize four different metabolic activities.
Eventually, the waste material is sent out of the body through diffusion.
Let me describe holozoic nutrition in amoeba in detail. Amoeba grabs food particles with
the help of pseudopodia. Amoeba is a regular-shaped unicellular organism containing a
nucleus and cytoplasm.
Whenever there is a food particle around the amoeba, it forms a temporary finger-like
extension of the cell surfaces called pseudopodia to capture the food particle.
Pseudopodia: Pseudo means false and podium means legs. Hence, these are like false legs.
It actually helps the amoeba in locomotion also. So they are called pseudopodia.
Pseudopodia of the opposite surfaces fuse to form a food vacuole. Hence, the captured food
in the food vacuole consists of complex substances which are broken into simple substances.
Now in the food vacuole, the food is broken down and the unused food particle is moved to
the surface of the cell. Eventually, it will be thrown out.
Holozoic Nutrition Class 10: Paramecium
Now, let us see how holozoic nutrition takes place in Paramecium. Cilia are responsible for
the locomotion and food capsule. With the help of Celia, food will be captured.
Paramecium is also called a slipper animalcule. It is a unicellular organism and has a definite
shape. It has an organ groove at the middle of the body called cytosol, through which food
particles are drawn into the body with the help of Celia.
Food vacuole is formed around food particles with some amount of water. This food vacuole
secretes some digestive enzymes and breaks them down into smaller particles. After that, it
gets absorbed into the body for metabolic activities. The waste is sent out through the anal
port.

3. This is how holozoic nutrition in amoeba and paramecium takes place which is holozoic
organisms.
Conclusion:
In the end, holozoic nutrition simply means a mode of nutrition in which the organism takes
the food in whole. There are 5 holozoic nutrition steps.
• Ingestion,
• Digestion,
• Absorption,
• Assimilation,
• Excretion.
Various types of organisms use such type of mode of nutrition. For example,
• Amoeba,
• Humans,
• Euglena,
• Paramecium, etc.
Amoeba and Paramecium use pseudopodia and Celia to carry out the process of ingestion,
respectively.