Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of various photosynthetic, unicellular marine algae of the division Haptophyta or Prymnesiophyta, possessing two flagella and often bearing external calcified scales that fossilize as coccoliths. Haptophytes are abundant in the world's oceans and are thought to play an important role in global carbon and sulfur cycles.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun botany A kind of
unicellular marine phytoplankton , typically covered in tinyscales orplates composed ofcarbohydrates andcalcium deposits.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[From New Latin Haptophyta, division name : Greek haptein, to grasp, touch (from the threadlike structure characteristic of the haptophytes, used to capture food and as a sensory organ ) + Greek phyton, plant; see -phyte.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
hapto- (“binding”) + -phyte (“plant”)
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Examples
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He has a specific interest in the haptophyte Phaeocystis antarctica, its morphological forms, and its role in the regional ecology and oceanography.
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This is enigmatic since much of the ocean is characterized by seasonal or episodic maxima in haptophyte production Brown and Yoder, 1994.
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Moreover, the marine haptophyte Coccolithus pelagicus exhibits membrane excitability that shows remarkably similar kinetics to the Na
PLoS ONE Alerts: New Articles Alison R. Taylor 2009
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