#dinobryon

" For the Choanozoa that went down that route, cells would divide and develop and bind together, creating biological links and relationships that we see as a whole animal instead of just individual cellular selves. While we could spend this episode marveling at the complexity of animal life, you might also be wondering... what about that first group of eukaryotes, the ones who didn't follow the animal path? What happened to them? What do they even look like?"

Journey to the Microcosmos- Getting to Know Our Single-Celled Ancestors

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

"While investigating the choanoflagellate genome, scientists found a number of genes encoding proteins that help cells stick to each other. These particular proteins were thought to be an animal thing, acting like glue that keeps our cells bound together. It's not completely clear why choanoflagellates have this molecule, but the fact that they do--along with the observation that some species group together into colonies--suggests that whatever our mysterious shared ancestor was, it was likely capable of some basic form of multicellularity. Metazoans just ran with it."

Journey to the Microcosmos- Getting to Know Our Single-Celled Ancestors

Golden algae - Dinobryon sp.

This is a colony of Golden Algae belonging to the genus Dinobryon. The single celled algae live in individual tubes named loricae, which are vase- or funnel-shaped. Cells have two unequal flagella and one or two chloroplasts. Species are determined by lorica and colony morphology. Their red eye spots and their beating whip-like flagella can be seen in this photo.

Dinobryon are very common in freshwater lakes, and some species can be found in estuarine or coastal marine waters. Blooms of Dinobryon can have an unpleasant fishy odor.

[Ochrophyta - Chrysophyceae - Chromulinales - Dinobryaceae - Dinobryon C.G. Ehrenberg, 1834]

References: [1] - [2]