Dinoflagellata

The dinoflagellates, also called dinophytes, are a monophyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes constituting the phylum Dinoflagellata and are usually considered protists. Dinoflagellates are mostly marine plankton, but they are also common in freshwater habitats. Their populations vary with sea surface temperature, salinity, and depth. Many dinoflagellates are photosynthetic, but a large fraction of these are in fact mixotrophic, combining photosynthesis with ingestion of prey.

Dinoflagellata

Ernst Haeckel · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
DinozoaPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB
Environment
lagoonal,coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 506 million years on record.

The record covers at least 506.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 0 Mya.

Cambrian — about 3 of 6727 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 17 of 6727 occurrencesSilurian — about 12 of 6727 occurrencesDevonian — about 3 of 6727 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 6727 occurrencesPermian — about 5 of 6727 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 1 of 6727 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 6727 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 2 of 6727 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 6727 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 145 of 6727 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 52 of 6727 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1098 of 6727 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1540 of 6727 occurrencesPaleocene — about 284 of 6727 occurrencesEocene — about 528 of 6727 occurrencesOligocene — about 296 of 6727 occurrencesMiocene — about 724 of 6727 occurrencesPliocene — about 419 of 6727 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1584 of 6727 occurrences550–531 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences531–513 Mya — about 2 occurrences513–495 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences495–476 Mya — about 8 occurrences476–458 Mya — about 1 occurrence458–440 Mya — about 16 occurrences440–421 Mya — about 4 occurrences421–403 Mya — about 1 occurrence385–366 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences366–348 Mya — about 1 occurrence311–293 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences293–275 Mya — about 1 occurrence275–256 Mya — about 2 occurrences256–238 Mya — about 3 occurrences220–202 Mya — about 2 occurrences202–183 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences183–165 Mya — about 133 occurrences165–147 Mya — about 61 occurrences147–128 Mya — about 233 occurrences128–110 Mya — about 713 occurrences110–92 Mya — about 615 occurrences92–73 Mya — about 682 occurrences73–55 Mya — about 697 occurrences55–37 Mya — about 452 occurrences37–18 Mya — about 607 occurrences18–0 Mya — about 2490 occurrences506.5 Mya11.7 ka550 Mya0 Mya

6,727 occurrences of Dinoflagellata on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6,727 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

138 formations

Riachuelo — 10.65°S, 37.04°WSanta Marta — 63.75°S, 58.00°WSanta Marta — 64.23°S, 56.62°WSanta Marta — 63.88°S, 57.96°WSanta Marta — 64.21°S, 57.18°WSanta Marta — 64.27°S, 57.30°WHidden Lake — 63.87°S, 57.99°WAlta Vista — 50.49°S, 72.58°WDjangura — 43.94°N, 41.50°EJagüel — 38.84°S, 67.88°WJagüel — 39.86°S, 66.62°WJagüel — 39.86°S, 67.62°WJagüel — 35.84°S, 69.67°WJagüel — 36.21°S, 69.46°WCalafate — 50.38°S, 72.20°WApollonian — 4.98°N, 3.02°WWhisky Bay — 63.83°S, 57.95°WWhisky Bay — 63.86°S, 58.04°WWhisky Bay — 63.86°S, 58.05°WWhisky Bay — 63.83°S, 58.13°WMonte León — 47.08°S, 66.39°WMonte León — 47.09°S, 66.01°WMonte León — 50.21°S, 68.59°WMonte León — 50.24°S, 68.75°WMonte León — 50.16°S, 68.41°WMonte León — 50.13°S, 68.40°WBima — 12.08°N, 13.14°EKotick Point — 63.86°S, 58.09°WKotick Point — 64.00°S, 58.36°WKotick Point — 64.01°S, 58.35°WAbu Roash — 30.00°N, 28.00°ETalme Yafe — 31.65°N, 34.61°EBahariya — 30.00°N, 28.00°EAgrio — 38.42°S, 70.00°WPorters Creek — 36.42°N, 89.56°WKuma — 44.74°N, 33.88°ELadegardsaen — 82.42°N, 23.17°WMonte Chico — 51.59°S, 72.41°WMonte Chico — 51.18°S, 72.29°WSpringhill — 52.77°S, 68.70°WAreniscas de el Limbo — 4.90°N, 73.02°WSix Hills — 25.50°N, 29.00°ESix Hills — 25.50°N, 29.25°ELópez de Bertodano — 63.99°S, 57.43°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Dinoflagellata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 114 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3,986 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dinoflagellata and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Dinoflagellata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,665 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 459 sites for Dinoflagellata, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

183 references

Each of the 6,727 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 171 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Dinoflagellata

Credit
Ernst Haeckel
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dinoflagellata was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itDinozoa through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bütschli 1885