Home / Greens / Colonial / Flagellated / Platydorina
Click on images for larger format
Name derivation:
“Flat gift” -- Flat Platy- gift –dorina
Classification:
Platydorina Kofoid, 1899; the single species description is currently accepted taxonomically (Guiry and Guiry 2013). Order Chlamydomonadales; Family Volvocaceae
Morphology:
Green flat colonies, somewhat horseshoe shaped, formed of up to 32 spherical in a gelatinous substance, pear shaped cells each containing two equal flagella along with two contractile vacuoles at their base and a stigma stuck in a gelatinous matrix. Sometimes have protrusions from the colony. Each cell in a colony has the capability to form its own colony. They are a dioecious organism. The males produce sperm packets that form walled hypnozygotes, which then germinate and develop via meiosis.
Similar genera:
Habitat:
Freshwater, only found in the United States.
References:
Guiry, M.D. and G.M. Guiry 2013. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. http://www.algaebase.org; searched on 10 September 2013. Kofoid, C.A. 1899. Plankton studies. III. On Platydorina, a new genus of the family Volvocidae, from the plankton of the Illinois River. Bulletin of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History 5(9): 419-440, pi. 38.