Radiolaria Polycystina

By Demetrio Boltovskoy

The overall total of living polycystine species is probably around 300-600, but this review includes only 176 taxa (14 genera and 162 species including 5 subspecies). Unfortunately, the present state of knowledge is insufficient for a significantly greater coverage. Identification keys are not adequate for this particular group due to their lack of flexibility, and because they are more prone to lead to misidentifications given the high number of rare polycystine species not included in this review.

Contents
RaPo. 1 Introduction
RaPo. 2 Provenance and collection of materials
RaPo. 3 Sample preparation and analysis
RaPo. 4 Sedimentary versus water-column materials
RaPo. 5 Geographic patterns
RaPo. 6 Vertical profiles
RaPo. 7 Morphology and classification systems
RaPo. 8 Order and family-level diagnoses
RaPo. 9 Acknowledgments
RaPo. 10 Suggested reading

Identification
Keys for the identification of polycystine radiolarians are not available (see RaPo. 8 for further information).

Species
See the page for Class Polycystina (and following pages) in the Higher taxa module. A species list can also be found on that page.

For the species, see Acrosphaera murrayana to Saccospyris antarctica in the Species module.