portrait

Description :

Gymnodinium (jim-no-din-ee-um), a so-called typical dinoflagellate. Most dinoflagellates have two flagella and they lie in grooves in the cell surface. The flagella are not evident here, but the grooves are. There is an circumferential groove (the girdle or cingulum) which wraps around the cell, and a longitudinal groove which extends from the point of flagellar insertion towards the back of the cell. This is an autotrophic dinoflagellate with numerous plastids with chlorophylls a and c. The nucleus is the granular structure in the lower (hypocone) part of the cell. Differential interference contrast.