From a plankton tow in the oligotrophic Atlantic: Anyone recognize what is happening here? To me it looks like a transparent ball filled with a prasinophyte green alga (e.g. Pyramimonas or Cymbomonas). But why/how a unialgal culture inside this ball?
@burnsajohn Looks like a Halosphaera. When they mature completely, the flagellates un-cluster, swim around, and ultimately 'hatch'. This happens when a weakness forms in the external sphere and an internal membrane extrudes and eventually ruptures, releasing the flagellates.
@RebeccaRHelm Marvelous! That's two votes for Halosphaera: And I learned about a new alga! Prasinophytes are something else! I have the colony in RNALater... so I'll eventually (try and) pull a molecular ID too. Thank you.
@burnsajohn YAYY! I LOVE THEM! Prasinophytes are some of my absolute favs! Just curious, when did you find them? I was just in the Gulf of Mexico and I could have sworn we saw some. But I thought they were everywhere so didn't take a closer look 😅
@RebeccaRHelm Just last week--March 14. It was from a surface tow pretty close to Bermuda on the way back from the BATS station. We were looking for rhizarians, but my experience with Cymbomonas (the first genome I ever analyzed😍) made this ball catch my eye.
@burnsajohn So cool!!! We saw them in a neuston tow earlier this month. The first time I saw them was back in 2005 in Washington State. I just assumed they were everywhere 🙃