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John Macfarlane was the first to recognize Eukaryota as a group

Nature Microbiology volume 7, pages 739–740 (2022)Cite this article

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In 1925, he twice mentioned the grouping called ‘Eucaryotes’, without clarification, in a report on a protist species2,3,4. The first time Eucaryotes contained only protists, and the second time animals and plants were added2,3. Thus, his paper left us with the unexplained etymology of the name, two contradicting circumscriptions and the impression that the group had been introduced before.

To my regret, I found no publications that mentioned that this actually was done before, and that Chatton, despite the rest of his excellent scientific achievements4, was only a rediscoverer (reproducer?) here.

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This work did not receive any specific funding from institutions or funding agencies in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

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  1. Saint Petersburg, Russia

    Yegor Shɨshkin

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  1. Yegor Shɨshkin
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Correspondence to Yegor Shɨshkin.

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Nature Microbiology thanks Denis Baurain and Nikita Kluge for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Shɨshkin, Y. John Macfarlane was the first to recognize Eukaryota as a group. Nat Microbiol 7, 739–740 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01129-5

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