Their ubiquity in most marine sedimentary rocks, often as large, well-preserved,ĭiverse assemblages, has resulted in their being the most studied group of fossils worldwide.

The importance of foraminifera comes from the use of their fossil tests in biostratigraphy, paleoenvironment Protozoans living in all environments from the greatest depths right up to highest astronomical tide level and Foraminifera are essentially marine and estuarine-dwelling (as Globigerina ooze on the ocean floor). The tests of recently dead plankticįoraminifera are so abundant that they form a thick blanket over one third of the surface of the Earth Foraminifera areĪmong the most abundant and scientifically important groups of organisms. The tests are usually less than 0.5 mm in size, but the largest can be up to 20 cm across. They usually produce a test (or shell) which can have one or moreĬhambers, and are made of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) or mineral grains or other particles glued together. That branch and merge to form a dynamic net. Search the recent (living) taxa then tick the 'extant' box in the Taxon Search window.įoraminifera (‘hole bearers’), foraminifers or forams for short, are a large phylum ofĪmoeboid protozoans (single celled) with reticulating pseudopods, fine strands of cytoplasm The default setting is to search the whole database of fossil and recent species.

Searching the database (fossil and/or recent) Initiative to provide a register of all marine organisms. World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), a global This World Database of all species of Foraminifera ever described (recent and fossil), is part of the Current number of valid recent species recorded: 8 967Ĭurrent number of valid fossil species recorded: 40 911Ĭurrent number of total valid (fossil + recent) species recorded: 49 004

Tokyo Species 2012