''Dinophysis'' is a genus of
dinoflagellates
AlgaeBase
AlgaeBase is a global species database of information on all groups of algae, both marine and freshwater, as well as sea-grass.
History
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''Dinophysis'' Ehrenberg, 1839
/ref> common in tropical, temperate, coastal and oceanic waters.[Hallegraeff, G.M., Lucas, I.A.N. 1988: The marine dinoflagellate genus Dinophysis (Dinophyceae): photosynthetic, neritic and non-photosynthetic, oceanic species. Phycologia, 27: 25–42. 10.2216/i0031-8884-27-1-25.1] It was first described in 1839 by Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg
Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (19 April 1795 – 27 June 1876) was a German Natural history, naturalist, zoologist, comparative anatomist, geologist, and microscopy, microscopist. Ehrenberg was an Evangelicalism, evangelist and was considered to ...
.[Ehrenberg, C.G., 1839. Über jetzt wirklich noch zahlreich lebende Thier-Arten der Kreideformatien der Erde. Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Bericht über die zur Bekanntmachung geeigneten Verhandlungen, 1839, p. 152-159.
Über noch zahlreich jetzt lebende Thierarten der Kreidebildung, nach Vorträgen in der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin in den Jahren 1839 und 1840, L. Voss, Leipzig]
PDF
p. 44ff
''Dinophysis'' are typically medium-sized cells (30-120 µm).theca
In biology, a theca (plural thecae) is a sheath or a covering.
Botany
In botany, the theca is related to plant's flower anatomy. The theca of an angiosperm consists of a pair of microsporangia that are adjacent to each other and share a comm ...
e are divided into halves by a sagittal
The sagittal plane (; also known as the longitudinal plane) is an anatomical plane that divides the body into right and left sections. It is perpendicular to the transverse and coronal planes. The plane may be in the center of the body and divi ...
fission suture.binary fission
Binary may refer to:
Science and technology Mathematics
* Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1)
* Binary function, a function that takes two arguments
* Binary operation, a mathematical operation that ta ...
.kleptoplastid
Kleptoplasty or kleptoplastidy is a symbiotic phenomenon whereby plastids, notably chloroplasts from algae, are sequestered by host organisms. The word is derived from ''Kleptes'' (κλέπτης) which is Greek for thief. The alga is eaten no ...
s when feeding. Toxic ''Dinophysis'' produce okadaic acid
Okadaic acid, C44H68O13, is a toxin produced by several species of dinoflagellates, and is known to accumulate in both marine sponges and shellfish. One of the primary causes of diarrhetic shellfish poisoning, okadaic acid is a potent inhibitor of ...
, dinophysistoxins, and