foraminifer
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌfɒɹəˈmɪnɪfə/
ipa: /ˌfɔɹəˈmɪnəfɚ/
Forms: form: foraminifers
Etymology: Borrowed from French foraminifère (“foraminifer, foraminifera”), from French Foraminifères, coined by the French naturalist Alcide d’Orbigny (1802–1857) in an 1826 article. By surface analysis, Latin forāmen (“apertures, holes”, stem foramin-) + -fer (“bearing”).
Senses: examples: text: The species of foraminifer which composes, almost to the exclusion of all others, the deep Atlantic mud, is called Globigerina. […] The natural home of the foraminifers appears to be in the deeper parts of the ocean, commencing where the regular inhabitants of limited depths terminate.
ref: 1859 October, “Art. V.—Physical Geography of the Atlantic Ocean.”, in The Westminster Review, American edition, volume LXXII, number CXLII, New York, N.Y.: Leonard Scott & Co., […], →OCLC, page 263:
text: The Heterostegina-bed at Malta is not without smaller Foraminifers (some of which we can identify,—as the Globigerina bulloides, Truncatulina lobatula, &c.), but the matrix is too stubborn to yield all its treasures.
ref: 1860 January 4, T[homas] Rupert Jones, W[illiam] K[itchen] Parker, “3. On the Rhizopodal Fauna of the Mediterranean, Compared with that of the Italian and Some Other Tertiary Deposits.”, in The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, volume XVI, part I (Proceedings of the Geological Society), London: Longmans, Green, Longmans, and Roberts […], →ISSN, →OCLC, page 300:
text: From a palæontological point of view the only part of a Foraminifer with which we have to deal is the shell or "test," […] Each bud of the compound Foraminifer is surrounded by its own shell, so that the whole comes to be composed of a number of chambers, each containing a mass of sarcode.
ref: 1872, Henry Alleyne Nicholson, “Sub-kingdom I.—Protozoa.”, in A Manual of Palæontology for the Use of Students […], 3rd edition, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part II, page 61:
text: The environmental significance of foraminifer abundance variations in Arctic cores is controversial[…]. One interpretation concludes that foraminifer-rich intervals represent interglacial conditions reflecting seasonally absent or reduced ice cover leading to increased productivity; intervals barren or nearly barren of foraminifers are considered to represent glacial conditions with thicker ice cover and lower productivity[…].
ref: 1994, Richard Z. Poore, Scott E. Ishman, R. Lawrence Phillips, David H. McNeil, “Paleoceanography”, in Quaternary Stratigraphy and Paleoceanography of the Canada Basin, Western Arctic Ocean […] (U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin; 2080), Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, →OCLC, page 10, column 1:
text: A cross-section through a single agglutinated foraminifer – in this case, one that selected both carbonate and non-carbonate grains to build its test. These foraminifers are recognizable by the chamber-shaped grain arrangements rather than the otherwise random distribution of grains in the rest of the rock.
ref: 2003, Peter A. Scholle, “Grains: Skeletal Fragments: Foraminifers”, in A Color Guide to the Petrography of Carbonate Rocks: Grains, Textures, Porosity, Diagenesis (AAPG Memoir; 77), Tulsa, Okla.: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, →ISBN, page 37:
text: One of the most frequently asked questions concerns the predators of planktic foraminifers. Whereas a large variety of predators of benthic foraminifers have been identified, the nature of planktic foraminifer predators is largely enigmatic.
ref: 2017, Ralf Schiebel, Christoph Hemleben, “Nutrition, Symbionts, and Predators”, in Planktic Foraminifers in the Modern Ocean, 2nd edition, Berlin; Heidelberg: Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, section 4.6 (Predation), page 154, column 1:
synonyms: word: foram
word: foraminifera
word: foraminiferan
word: foraminiferid
word: foraminiferon
word: foraminiferum
glosses: Any of a large group of aquatic amoeboid protists of the subphylum Foraminifera, characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm that among other things is used for catching food, often with a calcareous shell with many holes through which pseudopodia protrude.
wikipedia: Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart
Alcide d’Orbigny
Annales des sciences naturelles
Jean Victor Audouin
Jean-Baptiste Dumas
Derived terms: foram
foraminiferal
foraminiferivore
foraminiferivorous
foraminiferological
foraminiferologist
foraminiferology
foraminiferous
Related terms: foramen
Foraminifera
foraminiferan
foraminiferid
foraminiferon
foraminiferum