Cochlodinium: a beautiful, harmful and useful alga

Franz Neidl · Post by **Franz Neidl** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 11:14 am

Today I found Cochlodinium polykrikoides - a marine dinoflagellate. It travels generally as a chain (2, 4 or 8 individuals). Every alga is about 30-40 µm long.

It is beautiful because it has a very vivid jellow color.
It is harmful because it causes sometimes fish kills and it is very poisonous.
To my surprise it is also very useful, because it develops an antiviral activity wich is used in the treatment of HIV (see Google).

Franz

Mitch640 · Post by **Mitch640** » Sat Dec 03, 2011 2:25 pm

Very nice image and of course, you have to wonder who anyone thought to test it's properties for medicine.