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Acetabularia sp
Just brought this back off the beach as I did'nt have my camera with me. These beautiful 'parasols' are attached to a stone which has been washed up on the shore after a very stormy night. I've put this in a container with water so that I could see how they would move when in the sea
Acetabularia is an interesting and beautiful species of green algae. It features a lightly calcified stem that hosts a single disc like appendage.
Found this washed up on the beach - http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/106...
Spotted on Apr 1, 2012
Submitted on Apr 1, 2012
29 Comments (1–25)
Congratulations on the SOTD! I love Acetabularia, both as a beautiful organism and for its historical role in biology.
As for the classification of green algae, that's been hotly debated for a long time. Traditionally (in the five- or six-kingdom system), the various algae (red, green, brown, etc.) have all been placed in Kingdom Protista. In recent decades, there have been various suggestions at reclassification, most all of which put land plants (embryophytes; members of the traditional kingdom Plantae) and green algae in the same kingdom. This kingdom has been called Chlorobionta, Viridiplantae, Plantae and other things. Many researchers are avoiding terms such as kingdom, opting instead to say that Viridiplantae is a clade that includes green algae and land plants (most green algae in the subclade Chlrophyta; land plants and the rest of the green algae in the subclade Streptophyta). I don't know if there is one generally agreed-upon system right now. Even college textbooks disagree with each other. Makes taxonomy a difficult subject to teach.
Thanks again!
Congrats Viv! : )
Congratulations Viv,,
Amazing find! Great photo as well.
Congratulations!!
WOW! Thanks Yasser I'm so chuffed.......... you can't see from there, but I've got a BIG smile on my face : )
I have learnt so much since joining Project Noah, so big thanks to everyone that has helped me with idents and comments
congrats Viv!
The thumbnail doesn't begin to do this picture justice; click on this spotting to see a beautiful organism!
What a fantastic spotting! ..in love with this organism... congrats!
Amazing!
Fascinating species. Great pictures.
Congrats on the spotting of the day.
Wow wonderful series Viv!
Confratulations
Congratulations, Viv.
Viv! Thanks for all your wonderful contributions. This great encounter has been selected as Spotting of the Day!
"Acetabularia, sometimes called Mermaid's Wine Glass, are among the largest single-celled organisms, making them an excellent model organism for studying cell biology."
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Is'nt nature amazing! So lucky we went to the beach after the storm, as I went back yesterday and there were none.
exquisite!
Beautiful spotting-interesting patterns
Emma, I am not a taxonomist, just basing my comment on http://www.algaebase.org/search/genus/de.... Great spotting VivBraznell!
Changed to 'Other' Emma : ) Thanks!
therefore it should be categorized as "other"
All algae are of the kingdom Protista,
A protist is any organism that is not a plant, animal or fungus
http://biologycorner.com/bio1/protista.h...
Anna, So according to the above link,algae is not a plant
VivBraznell - Nice spotting! Of course algae is acceptable. All plant and animal life should be documented here. :)
green algae are in the kingdom Plantae, I would think they would be categorized as plants on PN.
Is this an algae? I wonder how would you categorize Algae. Probably other? Might want to confirm with another ranger.
The name and the spotting both are awesome!