Journal
JOURNAL OF MICROPALAEONTOLOGY
Volume 37, Issue 1, Pages 97-104Publisher
GEOLOGICAL SOC PUBL HOUSE
DOI: 10.5194/jm-37-97-2018
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/P016375/1, NE/P016642/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [NE/P016642/1, NE/P016375/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Agglutinated foraminifera are marine protists that show apparently complex behaviour in constructing their shells, involving selecting suitable sedimentary grains from their environment, manipulating them in three dimensions, and cementing them precisely into position. Here we illustrate a striking and previously un-described example of complex organisation in fragments of a tube-like foraminifer (questionably assigned to Rhabdammina) from 1466m water depth on the northwest Australian margin. The tube is constructed from well-cemented siliciclastic grains which form a matrix into which hundreds of planktonic foraminifer shells are regularly spaced in apparently helical bands. These shells are of a single species, Turborotalita clarkei, which has been selected to the exclusion of all other bioclasts. The majority of shells are set horizontally in the matrix with the umbilical side upward. This mode of construction, as is the case with other agglutinated tests, seems to require either an extraordinarily selective trial-and-error process at the site of cementation or an active sensory and decision-making system within the cell.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available