Foraminifera

Foraminifera Latest News

Recently, scientists at Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune have discovered a new species of Foraminifera and named it Portatrochammina bharatensis.

About Foraminifera

• It is a group of single-celled organisms that have inhabited the world’s oceans for over 500 million years.
• The shells have hundreds of tiny holes called foramen, the Latin word for window. 
• They are among the most abundant and ecologically important organisms in the ocean.

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Features of Foraminifera

• Size: They are generally sand-grain size, measuring between 500 and 50 µm.
• Habitat: They live in the open ocean, along the coasts, and in estuaries. 
• Most have shells for protection and either float in the water column (planktonic) or live on the sea floor (benthic). 
• They construct their intricate shells, called “tests,” from materials they scavenge from their surroundings (agglutinating mineral grains). 
• Most of foraminifera” ‘crawl around’ using their pseudopodia. 
• They don’t have a wall around their cell membranes, they are extremely flexible and can change shape.
• The organism pushes extensions of its cytoplasm called pseudopodia (or false feet) through these holes to gather food.
• Diet: Foraminifera eat detritus on the sea floor and anything smaller than them: diatoms, bacteria, algae, and even small animals such as tiny copepods.
• They build complex shells, consisting at their simplest of one chamber (like a vase or tube) to many chambers that coil in elaborate ways.

Source: RM