A Tale Of Two Flagella By Olivia Judson

In her article, “A Tale of Two Flagella,” Olivia Judson (2010) states that the dinoflagellate is considered a plant, animal, predator, and a parasite. A dinoflagellate is defined as a large group of single celled organisms that can be helpful and harmful. Dinoflagellates are very diverse in characteristics and abilities. For example, some dinoflagellates perform photosynthesis, some have eyes, and others capture and eat prey. A dinoflagellate can look like a small brown ball that is structured as whorls and spines. Some are microscopic and others can grow as big as caviar. The good a dinoflagellate does is that without them, coral reefs would not be possible. Flagella provide about 90% of the nutrition coral needs to survive. Coral reefs
are very sensitive and can die even if the oceans temperature drops only a few degrees. The bad dinoflagellates can cause ciguatera fish poisoning and paralytic shellfish poisoning. The two poisons can make humans very ill or can be fatal. Also, dinoflagellates can cause red tides which bleaches the coral and turns the coral white. The coral turning white sometimes causing them to die, while others do survive. Lastly, other strange, but interesting facts about the dinoflagellate is that they have 67 times the amount of DNA than the human genome. They store there DNA differently by replacing the molecule thymine with hydroxymethyluracil. A dinoflagellate have the ability to make energy from the sun because they eat the photosynthetic organisms and take over there chloroplasts. So, dinoflagellates can be described as “the most versatile and peculiar organisms on the planet.”