Foraminifera Gallery - illustrated catalog
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Basic information on foraminifera
What are foraminifera?
| Foraminifera, or forams for short, are single-celled organisms that live in the open ocean, along the coasts and in estuaries. They consist of cytoplasma, which is stabilized and protected by an inner shell called test. Either they float in the water column (planktonic) or live on the sea floor (benthic). Of the approximately 6,000 species living today, only about 50 species are planktonic. It is estimated that there are about 80.000 species, which went extinct. |
What do forams eat, who eats forams?
| Foraminifera have varied appetites and feed on many of the organisms found in their environments: bacteria, unicellular algae such as diatoms and dinoflagellates, and even small animals such as copepods. In turn, forams are eaten by small invertebrates and fish. Because of their abundance, they are thought to be important intermediates between smaller and larger constituents of the food web. |