Subclass Placoperla Cavalier-Smith, 2012

Diagnosis: imbricate cercozoa that secrete a test of mineralized spherical perles or silicified plate scales that are typically double tiered with a perforate upper tier.

Includes superorders Perlatia and Placofila.

Order Perlofilida Cavalier-Smith, 2012

Diagnosis: near spherical heterotrophic and phagotrophic non-flagellate protists with uniformly extremely thin but stiff, symmetrically radiating, unbranched filopodia (unlike Cristidiscoidea), lacking a microtubule axoneme and lacking extrusomes; unlike in Cristidiscoidea, cell surface covered with one or more layers of spherical siliceous perles bounded by a wall with numerous uniformly sized but irregular-shaped small holes.
Centrosomes and interphase microtubules absent, unlike Heliozoa; mitochondrial cristae flat; numerous Golgi dictyosomes closely surround the eccentric nucleus; thin ectoplasm without a dense layer underlying the plasma membrane, unlike Apusozoa; microbodies associated with lipid drops and mitochondria.