Amoeba

An amoeba is a unicellular protozoan of the genus Amoeba. Amoebas are famous for asexual reproduction in the form of binary fission, or splitting in half. This meaning of asexual is different from the asexual. Nevertheless, in the early years of the asexual community "amoeba" became a colloquial term used to refer to an asexual person, though in recent years the terms "ace" and "asexy" have outstripped "amoeba" in popular use.

Early examples of this usage include an article titled “My life as an amoeba” by Zoe O'Reilly published by StarNet Dispatches on May 30, 1997 and the Yahoo listserve Haven for the Human Amoeba founded in 2000. Despite falling out of popularity as a slang term for asexual people, references to this usage are retained in slogans like "Asexuality: not just for amoebas anymore" and from the original AVEN forum post rankings added in 2003: present examples are Amoeba at 50-69 posts and Amoeba Colony at 100-199 posts, as well as several mitosis rankings.