Acantharia

By Renate Bernstein, Stanley A. Kling and Demetrio Boltovskoy

The Class Acantharia comprises around 50 genera and 150 species. Acantharia are delicate, free living, microphagic, exclusively marine microzooplanktonic protozoa. They are generally spherical, oblate or sometimes flattened, ranging in size from 0.05-5 mm in diameter.

Contents
Ac. 1 Introduction
Ac. 2 Methods
Ac. 3 Distribution
Ac. 4 Morphology
Ac. 5 Acknowledgments
Ac. 6 Suggested reading

Identification
Go to Page 2: Acantharia in the Key, for the section where Acantharia are identified to genus level.

Species
See Class Acantharia for links to acantharian genera in the Higher taxa module. On this page there is also a list of South Atlantic species.

For the species, see the Species module from Acanthocolla cruciata to Dictyacantha tetragonopa (146 pages).