The Chlamydiae are a bacterial phylum and class whose members are remarkably diverse, including pathogens of humans and animals, symbionts of ubiquitous protozoa, and marine forms not yet well understood. All of the Chlamydiae that humans have known about for many decades are obligate intracellular bacteria; in 2020 many additional Chlamydiae were discovered in ocean-floor environments, and it is not yet known whether they all have hosts. Historically it was believed that all Chlamydiae had a peptidoglycan-free cell wall, but studies in the 2010s demonstrated a detectable presence of peptidoglycan, as well as other important proteins.