68, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel placed the Mycetozoa in a kingdom he named Protista. In 1885, the British zoologist Ray Lankester grouped the Mycetozoa alongside the Proteomyxa as part of the Gymnomyxa in the phylum Protozoa. Arthur and Gulielma Lister published monographs of the group in 1894, 1911, and 1925. In 1932 and 1960, the American mycologist George Willard Martin argued that the slime molds evolved from fungi. In 1956, the American biologist Herbert Copeland placed the Mycetozoa (the myxomycetes and plasmodiophorids) and the Sarkodina (the labyrinthulids and the cellular slime molds) in a phylum called Protoplasta, which he placed alongside the fungi and the algae in a new kingdom, Protoctista. In 1969, the taxonomist R. H. Whittaker observed that slime molds were highly conspicuous and distinct within the Fungi, the group to which they were then classified. He concurred with Lindsay S. Olive's proposal to reclassify the Gymnomycota, which includes slime molds, as part of the Protista. Whittaker placed three phyla, namely the Myxomycota, Acrasiomycota, and Labyrinthulomycota in a subkingdom Gymnomycota within the Fungi. The same year, Martin and Alexopoulos published their influential textbook The Myxomycetes. In 1975, Olive distinguished the dictyostelids and the acrasids as separate groups. In 1992, David J. Patterson and M. L. Sogin proposed that the dictyostelids diverged before plants, animals, and fungi. Phylogeny Slime molds have little or no fossil history, as might be expected given that they are small and soft-bodied. The grouping is polyphyletic, consisting of multiple clades (emphasised in the phylogenetic tree) widely scattered across the Eukaryotes. Paraphyletic groups are shown in quotation mar