A National Ocean Service/National Center for Coastal Ocean Science Program
Phytoplankton Monitoring Network
Promoting a better understanding of harmful algal blooms by way of volunteer monitoring
What Is This?!
See something under the scope that you can't identify? Below are pictures submitted by volunteers of unknowns they have found in their samples. In many cases, the same unknowns are found by many volunteers throughout the network sampling area.
Have an unknown?
Before sending us a picture, please check out this site and see if others were "stumped" by the same thing.
Don't see your unknown?
Please email Allison or Jeff as many pictures of the unknown as possible in JPEG format. Try to get photos from different angles and at the highest magnification allowable. Make sure to include in the email the magnification at which the photos were taken and any other descriptive details that could aid in the identification.
Eucampia spp.
Hemiaulus spp.
Commonly mistaken for Ditylum or Guinardia
Lioloma spp.
Commonly mistaken for Thallassionema; This used to be called Thallasiothrix which is hard to tell apart from Thallassionema
Protoperidinium spp.
Radiolarians (Not phytoplankton)
Licmophora abbreviate
Amphiprora spp.
This organism is often used to study diatom mobility due to its large size and fast movement
