Dinoflagellates
By James Banks
Dinoflagellates
• Pyrrhophyta is the phylum name
of the dinoflagellates.
About Dinoflagellates
• 90% of all dinoflagellates are marine
plankton.
Although many of them are microscopic,
the largest, Noctiluca, may be as large as
2 mm in diameter!
Not related to Dinosaurs
• The prefix Dino
means whirling
flagella. The
Dinoflagellates are
said to of out dated
the Dinosaur
What they look like
• As you can see in
the picture the
dinoflagellates are
a very ugly animal
but without them
you and I wouldn’t
be able to breathe
because they
make most of the
worlds oxygen
Anatomy
• This is the anatomy of
a Dinoflagellate.
How they get around
• Dinoflagellates swim
by means of two
flagella, movable
protein strands which
propel the cell
through the water. So
basically the move
like semen.
Good but Bad
• The Dinoflagellates
are good because
they give us oxygen
but they also are bad
because they produce
the Red Tide which
destroys fishing
based economies
because the fish eat
the Dinoflagellates
with red tide and die.
Reproduction
• The most form of
reproduction is
asexual, where
daughter cells form by
simple mitosis and
division of the cell.
The daughter cells
will be genetically
identical to that of the
original cell.
RAP UP PAGE
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Title Page
About Dinoflagellates
What they look like
Anatomy
How they get Around
Good but bad
Dinoflagellates
Reproduction