Preferential selection of titanium-bearing minerals in agglutinated Foraminifera: Ilmenite (FeTiO3) in Textularia hauerii d’Orbigny from the Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique

Selective agglutination of tourmaline grains by foraminifera in a deep-water flysch environment (Eocene Hieroglyphic beds, Silesian Nappe, Polish Outer Carpathians)

“…There fore, mo bil ity of other or gan isms within the sed i ment may have re sulted in mix ing and over turn ing of the de tri tal ma te rial. The pres ence of heavy min er als in the foraminiferal tests is un re lated to their con cen tra tion in the surround ing sed i ment, which was also no ticed in the Re cent en viron ments (Makled and Langer, 2009). …”

“…Be sides quartz, the fol low ing in or ganic de tri tal com po nents are ob served in the foraminifera test walls: cal cite, ar agon ite, do lo mite, glauconite, feld spars, micas, pyroxene, hornblende, mag ne tite, py rite as well as other heavy min er als, e.g. to paz, il men ite, mag ne tite, rutile, zir con, min er als rep re sent ing the gar net group, ap a tite, amhibole, and phillipsite (e.g., Heron-Allen, 1915;Switzer and Boucot, 1955;Weston, 1984;Höfling, 1988;Gooday et al, 1995b;Bartholdy et al, 2005;Makled and Langer, 2009;Mancin et al, 2012 and ci tations therine). Also shocked di a mond grains (Kaminski et al, 2008) and vol ca nic glass frag ments (Switzer and Boucot, 1955;Hess et al, 2000) were spo rad i cally ob served among the ag gluti nated grains.…”

A deep-sea agglutinated foraminifer tube constructed with planktonic foraminifer shells of a single species

“…The issue was debated again in 1916, when the foraminifer specialist Edward Heron-Allen claimed it as an example of "intelligence", which was robustly disputed by the physiologist Edward Ray Lankester in an exchange that quickly became a semantic argument (as described by Hemleben and Kaminski, 1990). But while terms such as "mental power" and "intelligence" remain jarring, the basic problem of how a single cell effects this kind of behaviour remains almost entirely unresolved and the debate has hardly moved on (Allen et al, 1988;Hemleben and Kaminski, 1990;Makled and Langer, 2010;Rothe et al, 2011).…”

“…To do this they must select, orientate and secure the grains in ways that are, at present, poorly understood (Allen et al, 1988;Hemleben and Kaminski, 1990;Makled and Langer, 2010;Rothe et al, 2011). The use of grain type can seem relatively haphazard (Armynot du Châtelet et al, 2013) or it can be highly selective of both size and composition.…”

“…The use of grain type can seem relatively haphazard (Armynot du Châtelet et al, 2013) or it can be highly selective of both size and composition. Examples of selectivity include foraminifera that gather specific minerals, sometimes heavy ones, such as ilmenite (Makled and Langer, 2010), rutile (Cole and Valentine, 2006) and garnet (Allen et al, 1999), or particular biological clast types such as sponge spicules (Brady, 1879), echinoderm plates (Heron- Allen and Earland, 1909), or coccoliths (Holbourn and Kaminski, 1997;Thomsen and Rasmussen, 2008). It is also common for some agglutinated foraminifera to reuse the shells of dead planktonic foraminifera from the surrounding sediment in constructing their tubes (Brady, 1879;Cartwright et al, 1989).…”