Talk:Dinoflagellate

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Number of species
The page should say how many species there are in the phylum. --Savant13 19:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Dinoflagellates, or Dinomastigotes?
I have read that they may be classified as another Kingdom (besides the five of Margulis), mainly due to the amazing characteristics of their chromosomes and methods of reproduction (metamorphosis). It is also interesting how varied they are (some heterotrophs, some autotrophs, and some both), and how advanced some of their organelles can be (like the ocellum). What is known about their evolution? Thank you SO MUCH for this article! User:AlissaSB
 * Dinoflagellates has been used since at least 1995. I remember instructors of mine having arguments amongst themselves over my papers on phytoplankton about this.  By 1996 all my reports said dinoflagellates and not dinomastigotes.  Lekogm 03:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Dinoflagellate bioluminescence
Thank you for the informative article. Would anyone know the ansers to the following questions posed by my very intelligent niece after an evening of observing bioluminescence in coastal North Carolina? How often can an individual dinoflagellate bioluminesce? Does the individual dinoflagellate deplete its entire store of luciferin during each luminescence? How long does it take a dinoflagellate to regenerate its store of luciferin? Thank you once again.--magresimag@aol.com

bleh...

dinoflagellates cell membrane
their cell membranes must be very complex in order to allow both nutrients in and waste product out at the same time? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.23.237.43 (talk) 15:45, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

meaning of dinos
Note: conflicting etymology of "dinos": "whirling" vs. "Terrible"? JEH 12:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * According to the OED, the "whirling" definition is the correct one. It cites an 1885 text ("O. Bütschli 1885, in Bronn Kl. u. Ordn. Thier-Reichs I. II. 907") and mentions rotation and flagella in its etymological definition.  Shall I make the change to the article, or do you fancy it?  Cheers, --Plumbago 13:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Saxitoxin from Dinoflagellates is the cause of MS and MSA!!
How can you know Saxitoxin is a cause of MS and MSA?

1. Because it is well known among the best saxitoxin-researchers in my country (Sweden) since a few years back. And I was told I was going to get MS (Multiple Sclerosis) or MSA (Multiple System Atrophy) by one of them when I was saxitoxin-poisoned. I did not believe in this but 1,5 years later I was severely sick in MSA.

2. And it is well known there was an outbreak of MS on the Orkney-islands when a group of British soldiers were stationed there. And what do they have there? Yes, Dinoflagelates in the sea which makes Saxitoxin which in turn poisons mussels. Then must the soldiers have taught the islanders how to cook and eat sea-mussels, and then followed the MS-outbreak of course.

3. And because it is well known that the orthodox Jews don’t get MS. One of the forbidden foodstuff for the orthodox Jews is shellfish that includes sea-mussels which can survive very high concentrations of Saxitoxin because they have ten times thicker neural-threads than other animals and therefor can get very poisonous to humans.

4. Also MS is an autoimmune disease that attacks the myelin and MSA is an autoimmune disease that attacks the oligodendrocyte-cells, which makes the myelin. It is known that autoimmune diseases can be started by toxins and since these two diseases are so closely related it is also logical they can have the same cause.

Saxitoxin has been starting MS and MSA for billions of years and will continue to do so for billions of years in the future and this has been and will be a fact for the same time-span, and I have learned this the hard way. It was proven to me by the reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Torbj01 (talk • contribs) 13:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

=diragram??= sorry, but that life cycle dirgram looks like it was kinda done on mircosoft paint. you can do better than that! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.98.71.222 (talk) 20:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

=burgulars= It could be mentioned that some of the Dinoflagellate that emit bioluminescent light when disturbed may be doing so as part of a "burglar alarm" defence to attract bigger predators to consume those who are threatening the Dinoflagellates.

Excellent stuff again User:Wetman

Thanks very much, Wetman! It's good to know people are looking at these pages. - Josh

HOW DOES A DINOFLAGELLATE BREATHE AND RELEASE WASTE?NO SITES HAVE ANY INFO ON IT INCLUDING THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 * Like most cells, materials are transported through the cell membrane.

Multiple references
References 14 to 18 are identical. Is there a way to fix that? Informationtheory (talk) 06:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I have fixed it. Thanks.--  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   08:00, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Life Cycle Error
From the life cycle section:

"In most dinoflagellates, the nucleus is dikaryotic throughout the entire life cycle."

I don't think this sentence is correct. Can a reference be provided to back this up? "The Biology of Dinoflagellates" (F.J.R. Taylor, ed.) makes no mention of a dikaryotic nucleus. Perhaps dinokaryotic was intended instead of dikaryotic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.128.107.172 (talk) 17:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

what's the oldest dinoflagellate?
Does anyone know how old the oldest dinoflagellates were? the main page for dinoflagellates says (in the upper right corner): Temporal range: 250–0 Ma

But another wikipedia page says the oldest ones are at least 1,1000 ma (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution#Proterozoic_Eon)

Neither page gives a reference. Can anyone produce a credible reference? (and then add it to both pages?) ;)

T H MITCHELL (talk) 04:33, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Bikonta not Protist ?
As I am informed, dinoflagellates are Bikonta and not Protist. Both are Eukaryotes though. Is there an error in this article?

86.52.114.223 (talk) 21:02, 27 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Dinoflagellates are both bikonts (not amoebozoans nor opisthokonts) and protists (unicellular, and not fungi or animals). (Protist denotes a grade, rather than a clade.) Lavateraguy (talk) 00:13, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Warnowiaceae
I'm not sure how this fits into this class or species, but shouldn't the article include information on the ocelloid bearing dinoflagellates (warnowiids?) - quite unique in being a very complex single-cell organism which simulates a relatively complex 'eye' called an ocelloid that has structures in it similar to parts of mammalian eyes?

The photosensitive ocelloid probably forms from a chloroplast and might be used to hunt or evade. The ocelloid can also be directed within the cell. The erythropsidinium ocelloid dinoflagellates are also apparently unique in that they have a piston-like structure which they can use to move. --24.88.64.22 (talk) 05:17, 4 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Several varieties of dinoflagellates have camera-style eyes with cornea, lens, and retina. They use rhodopsin. If you go to Google Images and search on dinoflagellate eye you'll see some pretty amazing micrographs. Like this.

Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:18, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Plastids
The ancestor of dinoflagellates contained a secondary plastid of red algal origin. (I'm not sure that all of them retain more than some genes transferred to the nuclear genome.) But several groups of dinoflagellates contain tertiary plastids of various origins. Other dinoflagellates use kleptoplastids. Lavateraguy (talk) 00:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

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Phylum? or Superclass?
There is an internal inconsistency in this article. In the first sentence it says dinoflagellata is a phylum -- 'a monophyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes constituting the phylum Dinoflagellata'. But over in the sidebar it is described as a 'superclass' -- part of the phylum Myzozoa. DlronW (talk) 16:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)