Silicoflagellates are small (usually less than 100 μm), unicellular marine phytoplankton particularly abundant in nutrient-rich, upwelling areas. They move like some animals, hence zoologists and many paleontologists have considered them to be protozoa; yet they possess photosynthetic chloroplasts, hence botanists have claimed them as algae. They possess a siliceous skeleton that surrounds most of the cell material except for fine pseudopodia and a single anterior flagellum. The skeletons are relatively resistant to solution and so are found commonly as fossils. They can be retrieved from marine sedimentary rock by chemical extraction techniques (Lipps, 1973; Mandra et al., 1973).
The Living Organism
Living silicoflagellates (Marshall, 1934; Van Valkenberg, 1971) usually possess a single nucleus with nucleolus, numerous yellow-brown chloroplasts, various other cytoplasmic granules and vacuoles contained mostly within the framework of the skeleton (Fig. 1). In individuals from rapidly...
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Lipps, J.H. (1979). Silicoflagellates . In: Paleontology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31078-9_129
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