Foraminifera are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly an external shell of diverse forms and materials. Tests of chitin are believed to be the most primitive type. Most foraminifera are marine, the majority of which live on or within the seafloor sediment, while a smaller number float in the water column at various depths, which belong to the suborder Globigerinina. Fewer are known from freshwater or brackish conditions, and some very few (nonaquatic) soil species have been identified through molecular analysis of small subunit ribosomal DNA.
The Fusulinida is an extinct order within the Foraminifera in which the tests are traditionally considered to have been composed of microgranular calcite. Like all forams, they were single-celled organisms. In advanced forms the test wall was differentiated into two or more layers. Loeblich and Tappan, 1988, gives a range from the Lower Silurian to the Upper Permian, with the fusulinid foraminifera going extinct with the Permian–Triassic extinction event. While the latter is true, a more supported projected timespan is from the Mid-Carboniferous period.
Discorbacea, Discorboidea in recent taxonomies, is a superfamily of foraminifera,, with a range extending from the Middle Triassic to the present, characterized by chambers arranged in a low trochspiral; an umbilical or interiomarginal aperture, with or without supplementary apertures; and a wall structure that is optically radial.
Abathomphalus is a genus of foraminifera included in the Globotruncanid family.
The Endothyracea is a superfamily in the foraminiferal order, Fusulinida known from the upper Devonian to the Lower Permian. Probably ancestral to the Fusulinacea.
Hantkeninoidea is a superfamily of foraminifera with planispiral or enrolled biserial tests, found in marine sediments of Paleocene to Miocene age, in which chambers vary from globular to elongate and the primary aperture is equatorial in position. It contains one family, the Hantkeninidae.
Lagenida is an order of benthic foraminiferal protists in which the tests (shells) are monolamellar, with walls composed of optically and ultra-structurally radiate calcite, with the crystallographic c-axes perpendicular to the surface. Lagenids first appear in the Upper Silurian and continue to the Recent. They are currently divided into two superfamilies, the older Robuloidacea which range from the Upper Silurian to the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) and the younger Nodosariacea, ranging from the Permian to Recent.
Nodosariacea is one of two superfamilies making up the foraminiferal order Lagenida. The other being the Robuloidacea. Of these two Nodosariacea is the more advanced, as well as being the younger.
Cibicides is a genus of cosmopolitan benthic foraminifera known from at least as far back as the Paleocene that extends down to the present.
Discorbis is a genus of benthic Foraminfera, that made its first appearance during the Eocene. Its present distribution is cosmopolitan.
Rosalina is a genus of foraminifera included in the rotaliid family Rosalinidae.
Rotorboides is a genus of recent (Holocene) bottom dwelling (benthic) forams from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, related to Rosalina.
Neoconorbina is a genus of recent (Holocene) discorbacean foraminifers related to Rosalina with a low conical trochoidal test, circular in outline. The conical side is the spiral side, on which all three whorls are visible, the final chamber taking up most of the periphery. The umbilical side is flat to concave. exposing only the three to four chambers of the final whorl around an open umbilicus. Chambers on the umbilical side have triangular to platelike umbilical extensions as with other rasalinids. The wall of is calcite, finely and densely perforate on the spiral side, more coarsely perforate on the umbilical side; surface smooth; aperture at the umbilical margin of the chamber, beneath the platelike extension, or folium.
Astrononion is a genus of foraminifera in the family Nonionidae, characterized by an evolute planispiral test with radially stellate structures partly covering the sutures on either side. The test is free, bilaterally symmetrical; periphery broadly rounded; chambers distinct, separated by depressed radial sutures, increasing gradually in size, and usually inflated; aperture a low arched opening at the base of the face of the test. The wall is of finely perforate monolamellar granular calcite.
Fabiania is a genus of large fossil benthic calcareous forams with a range extending from the Upper Paleocene to the Upper Eocene.
Buccella is a genus of late Cenozoic benthic foraminifera that made its first appearance during the Oligocene and is found living in recent oceans.
Halenia is a genus of recent discorbacean foraminifera. It contains only one species, Halenia legrandi The test is free, a low trochspire with a rounded periphery; wall calcareous, monolamellar. Chambers are subglobular, all visible on spiral side, only last volution visible on umbilical side; final chamber with an umbilical flap. Sutures are depressed, radial on umbilical side, curved to sinuate on spiral side, with sutural slits on both sides.
The Globoroatioidea constitutes a superfamily of Cenozoic plantonic foraminifera. It is part of the suborder Globigerinina. Globoroatioidea have trochospiral tests with rounded to carinate peripheries, the walls of which are of finely lamellar, perforate, of optically radial calcite, with an inner organic lining. The surface of these tests is smooth, lacking spines, but may be covered with pustules or pitted, and may have one or more large pores at the center. There is a single primary aperture that may be bordered by an imperforate lip, as well as possible supplementary apertures.
Gansserina is a genus of planktonic foraminifera, included in the globigerinid family Globotruncanidae, that had a fairly wide distribution in the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian). The type species is Gansserina gansseri.
Helen Niña Tappan Loeblich was an American micropaleontologist who was a professor of geology at the University of California, Los Angeles, a United States Geological Survey (USGS) biostratigrapher, and a scientific illustrator whose micropaleontology specialty was research on Cretaceous foraminifera.
